Dubai — Saudi Aramco expects its Jafurah gas field to produce approximately 2 billion cubic feet per day of gas by 2030, CEO Amin Nasser said on Monday at a conference on the commercialisation of unconventional resources.
Unconventional resources are those that require advanced extraction methods, such as those used in the shale gas industry.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, is working to develop its unconventional gas reserves. The Jafurah field project will cost it no more than 5 billion to 6 billion riyals ($1.3-$1.6 billion), its energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud said at the same conference.
The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV quoted Nasser as saying that the cost of developing Jafoura field will be $24 billion, adding that Aramco signed agreements worth of $10 billion for the development of the field.
Jafurah is the kingdom’s largest unconventional non-oil associated gas field, with reserves estimated at 200 trillion cubic feet of raw gas.
Gas is “the cornerstone of the transition to renewables”, Nasser said. Saudi Arabia has previously said that it aims to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2060.
Saudi Aramco expects output to reach around 2.2 billion cubic feet per day of sales gas by 2036, with an associated 425 million cubic feet per day of ethane, it said on its website. The Jafurah field would produce some 550,000 barrels per day of gas liquids and condensates, it added.
($1 = 3.7513 riyals)
– Reuters (Reporting by Nadine Awadalla; writing by Lina Najem; editing by Jason Neely, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Evans)