Saudi Arabia: not just oil, now a lot of natural gas …

Saudi Arabia increased its natural gas production by 30% in a decade to a record 11 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf / d approximately, just under 400 million sq m / day) in 2020. , as the world's leading oil exporter aims to develop more autonomous natural gas fields, the United States. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has seen a decline in associated natural gas production from oil fields in recent years, but the development of independent, unrelated gas fields has helped the Kingdom to bring its gas production to record. .

Saudi Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, has begun to prioritize the development of unassociated gas fields, most of which are offshore. A big step forward if we think that, in 2000, OPEC's largest oil producer did not produce gas except as a by-product from other petroleum plants, but autonomous gas developments have grown to represent 46% of its total production. of gas in 2020.

Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco aims not only to increase its oil production capacity to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 from the current 12 million bpd. It also aims to increase natural gas production to use more gas for domestic electricity generation at the expense of dirtier fuels, including burning oil. Thus it is energetically enriched, but it can also claim to be "Green".

Saudi Arabia's proven natural gas reserves amounted to 333 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) as of January 2021, including those in an area shared with Kuwait known as the Neutral Zone. Saudi Arabia was the sixth largest natural gas producer in the world after Russia, Iran, Qatar, the United States and Turkmenistan in 2020. Its weight on the markets is set to rise over time.

But it does not end there: the Saudis are also pursuing the development of shale gas, gas extracted from shale, and at the end of 2021 Aramco was awarded engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts worth 10 billion dollars because announced the start of development of the unconventional Jafurah gas field. This is the largest non-oil gas field in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, says Aramco. The project aims to meet growing demand for high-value petrochemical raw materials, complement Aramco's focus on hydrogen and support the expansion of its integrated gas portfolio, the company said in November.

So the Kingdom will also be King in gas, which is an important part of the "Green Transition" and, over time, could also be an alternative to Russian supplies. Now you understand why Gazprom pushes for long-term contracts.

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The article Saudi Arabia: not just oil, now a lot of natural gas… comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/arabia-saudita-non-solo-petrolio-ora-tanto-gas-naturale/ on Wed, 26 Jan 2022 13:00:03 +0000.