Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has revealed that state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco has discovered natural gas fields in four regions across the kingdom.
Quoting the minister, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) revealed that Saudi Aramco has discovered an unspecified number of fields, of which five natural gas fields were revealed by name.
The natural gas fields mentioned include one in the Empty Quarter desert, near the kingdom’s northern border; in Shadoon, in the central region; in the Shehab and Shurfa area, in the southeastern region; in Umm Khansar, near the northern border with Iraq; and in Samna, in the eastern region.
Saudi Arabia currently has 3.2% of the world’s proven gas reserves, and 17.2% of the world’s proven oil reserves, as of 2020, according to the BP’s Statistical Review for World Energy 2021.
The kingdom aims to increase gas production and boost the share of natural gas in its energy mix, replacing crude and fuel oil, to meet growing electricity consumption and to make more crude available for export.
Conventional and non-conventional natural gas fields
Saudi Aramco discovered a field in the central region, 180km southeast of Riyadh, with a flow rate of 27 MMcf/d and 3,300 b/d of condensate, the Minister of Energy confirmed in his statement to the SPA.
Aramco also discovered a gas field with a flow rate of 31 MMcf/d in the Empty Quarter desert, 70km southwest of the Shaybah oil field, as well as another field bearing a flow rate of 16.9 MMcf/d and 50 b/d of condensate in the Empty Quarter, approximately 120km southwest of Shaybah.
Meanwhile, the Samna and Umm Khansar gas fields are “non-conventional”, according to the SPA statement. Shale – also known as non-conventional deposits – require different extraction techniques as they are normally trapped in tight pore spaces.
Aramco also discovered an unconventional gas field with a flow rate of 2 MMcf/d and 295 b/d of condensate in the northern border, 71km southeast of the city of Arar,
Another unconventional gas field was discovered south of the Ghawar oil field, which is the world’s largest of its kind, with a flow rate at one well reaching 5.8 MMcf/d and 24 b/d of condensate.
Saudi Aramco’s focus on green energy
In 2021, Arabian Business reported that a key focus of one of the world’s biggest natural-gas projects would be on manufacturing blue hydrogen, as the kingdom steps up efforts to export a fuel seen as crucial to the green-energy transition.
A large portion of gas from the $110bn Jafurah development will be used for blue hydrogen, according to Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman. The fuel is made by converting natural gas and capturing the carbon dioxide emissions.
The plans for Jafurah underscore how the kingdom is moving away from previous plans to become an exporter of liquefied natural gas, a fuel that’s cleaner than oil and coal but which some governments have said they want to phase out.
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