Abu Dhabi has increased its estimates of crude oil and conventional natural gas reserves, reported the discovery of large volumes of unconventional gas, and liberalized trading of Murban crude.
The Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) said reserves are now 105 billion st-tk bbl for oil, up 7 billion st-tk bbl, and 273 tscf for conventional gas, up 58 tscf.
Ryder Scott, Houston, said it conducted an independent assessment of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s conventional reserves and confirmed the increments. The consultancy said its work for ADNOC followed the 2018 Petroleum Resources Management System of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
The SPC also reported discovery of unconventional recoverable gas resources totaling 160 tscf.
“The increase in reserves and new discoveries follows ADNOC’s extensive drilling of dozens of new exploration and appraisal wells across Abu Dhabi’s conventional and unconventional oil and gas fields over the past few years,” ADNOC said in a report of the SPC meeting. Also boosting reserves are work toward boosting production capacity to 5 million b/d by 2030 from 3 million b/d and “expanded oil recovery schemes, as well as ongoing in-fill drilling,” it said.
The SPC said ADNOC in the second half of next year will implement a forward pricing mechanism for Murban crude, replacing the traditional retroactive official selling price. The mechanism will use a market-driven futures contract, traded on an unspecified independent exchange, as its price marker.
Destination restrictions on ADNOC sales of Murban crude will be lifted.
