Saudi Aramco is responding to rising global oil demand and limited spare production capacity by developing several fields and increasing drilling, a company official said in an OTC presentation.
Rigs in growing numbers are conducting both exploration and development drilling in Saudi Arabia, said Abd Allah S. Al-Saif, Aramco senior vice-president exploration and producing.
Al-Saif noted that Saudi Arabia has 85 oil fields, with 320 reservoirs, and about 260 billion bbl of oil reserves. He said reserves estimates are based on “acceptable industry standards and are conservative estimates.”
He explained that the reserves calculations do not include enhanced oil recovery, producing oil of less than 12° gravity, or stringers that were once thought noncommercial but now can be produced with modern technology such as horizontal wells.
Al-Saif listed five developments that will increase production capacity. These are Haradh (300,000 bo/d in 2006), Khursaniyah (500,000 bo/d in 2007), Nuayyim expansion (100,000 bo/d in 2008), Shaybah expansion (250,000 bo/d in 2008), and Kurais (1.2 million bo/d in 2009). The Kurais development includes the 2.6 billion bbl Abu Jifan, 22.8 billion bbl Khurais, and 1.4 billion bbl Mazalij oil fields. Khurais, in addition to the 1.2 million bo/d, is expected to produce 350 MMcfd of gas and 70,000 b/d of NGL.
Al-Saif said the Kurais development plans include drilling 310 horizontal wells and installing facilities for injecting 2 million b/d of seawater. Included in the 310 wells are 125 water injection wells and 17 observation wells.
Al-Saif said the producing wells will have single 1-2-km long laterals and be instrumented with modern real-time, intelligent, downhole completions with “smart” electric submersible pumps. The injection wells will have 1.5-km long laterals, he said.
In the next 5 years, Al-Saif expects Aramco to drill about 200 oil and gas exploration wells, while joint ventures will drill an additional 25 gas exploration wells.
Aramco in 2005 had 83 rigs drilling and will have about 120 rigs drilling by the end of 2006 before reaching a plateau of 125 rigs in 2007, Al-Saif said. Aramco had 52 rigs active in 2004.
About 20 rigs are drilling offshore, many more than the 5-6 offshore rigs that Aramco operated in the past, he said. Al-Saif said all offshore rigs are drilling in the Persian Gulf but expects exploration drilling to start in the Red Sea in the future.
Al-Saif said gas is a target for Saudi exploration. Saudi Arabia produces about 8 bcfd all for domestic consumption and is expected to need 9 bcfd soon and may have to burn oil if more gas is not found.