Water issues could stall Saudi shale

A flame from a Saudi Aramco oil installion known as

Dry: water issues could hinder Saudi shale development

MARWAN NAAMANI

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By Luke Johnson & news wires

 12 March 2013 22:16 GMT

Saudi Arabia's plans to replicate the US shale boom could be delayed by at least a decade due to a scarcity of water, according to a report.

Finding the necessary resources for the water-intensive practise of hydraulic fracturing could prove difficult in the arid Saudi desert, said Amin Nasser, senior vice president of upstream at Saudi Aramco.

“The infrastructure cost will go down with time,” Bloomberg quoted him as telling an oil and gas conference in Manama, Bahrain this week. “But water is going to remain a challenge.”

A typical hydraulic-fracture completion in the US can require 75,000 barrels of water or more, depending on the depth of the well and the length of the lateral. Some jobs can require…

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