Saudi Aramco plans to start producing unconventional natural gas this month and exploit a deposit one Aramco executive said could rival the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas. Saudi Arabia’s gas resources from shale and other alternative supplies are “huge,” Khalid Al Abdulqader, general manager of Unconventional Resources at Aramco, said Wednesday in Manama, Bahrain, Bloomberg reported. Production from the kingdom’s North Arabia Basin will start by March 31, he said, without giving details, Kallanish Energy understands. Aramco is also drilling for unconventional gas in the South Ghawar and Jafurah basins, he said. Jafurah in eastern Saudi Arabia is similar in size to the Eagle Ford, Al Abdulqader said, although he gave no estimate of the gas contained at Jafurah. “It’s completely believable,” Robin Mills, CEO of Dubai-based consultant Qamar Energy, told Bloomberg of the comparison. “Can they make a commercial proposition of it? That’s the question.” State-run Aramco plans to spend $300 billion on projects over the next decade to maintain its spare production capacity for oil and boost exploration for and output of conventional and unconventional gas, CEO Amin Nasser said last July. Any increase in shale gas supplies and other hard-to-access rock would allow crude Saudi Arabia uses in its power plants to be exported for a bigger profit. The Eagle Ford had 22.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas reserves in 2016, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration report issued last month. Aramco plans to double its production of gas, to 23 billion cubic feet a day (Bcf/d) over the coming decade, Nasser said. Jafurah is located between Ghawar, the world’s largest oilfield, and the Persian Gulf. Pipeline networks and other facilities needed to produce unconventional gas at Jafurah are nearby, and this existing infrastructure should help expedite the basin’s development, Mills told Bloomberg. Saudi Arabia traditionally pumped gas only as a crude byproduct. The nation began its hunt for gas in the early 2000s after oil sank below $10 a barrel. It invited oil supermajors ExxonMobil, Chevron and other major producers to join it, hoping to attract $100 billion of investment. But the ventures never were productive.
Saudi Aramco has “huge” unconventional gas resources and plans to start producing unconventional gas this month, according to Khalid al Abdulqader, general manager of Unconventional Resources. The company is also planning a new LNG plant in the United Arab Emirates that will be able to produce up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, he said.