Saudi state energy company Aramco announced Tuesday its production of the first unconventional tight gas from its South Ghawar operational area, located 200km east of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia's Al Hasa Province.
This development supports Aramco’s strategy to increase gas production by more than half, over 2021 levels, through 2030, subject to domestic demand.
The commissioned facilities at South Ghawar have 300 million standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of raw gas processing capacity and 38,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate processing capacity, the company said.
In response to growing gas demand, the company will continue to work to more than double the overall processing capacity to achieve South Ghawar’s strategic goal of delivering 750 million scfd of raw gas.
'This first production of unconventional tight gas from South Ghawar is a milestone that demonstrates real progress on our gas expansion strategy, which we believe has a role to play in meeting the Kingdom’s needs for lower-emission energy and supporting growth in the chemicals sector,' Nasir Al-Naimi, Aramco’s upstream president, was quoted as saying in the statement.
The successful production of tight sand gas at South Ghawar represents Aramco’s second unconventional gas stream, after production commenced at the North Arabia field in 2018 with the delivery of 240 million scfd, the company disclosed.
'Work is simultaneously progressing at the giant Jafurah unconventional gas field, which is the largest liquid-rich shale gas play in the Middle East,' it added.
Tight gas refers to natural gas reservoirs produced from reservoir rocks with such low permeability that considerable hydraulic fracturing is required to extract the well profitably. These resources are sealed in extremely impermeable, hard rock, making the underground formation extremely 'tight'.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr