Hard at work: at the Khurais field
Khurais on track says Aramco exec
A senior official from Saudi Aramco has confirmed that the state company expects its Khurais development to produce first oil within the next couple of months, putting Saudi Arabia on track to hit capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day by the summer.
Amin Nasser, Aramco’s senior vice president of exploration and production, told an OTC luncheon on Monday that Khurais should start production by the end of June.
He said that a water pre-injection programme used at Khurais had added to the operator’s confidence that production from the giant field will be able to reach targeted levels of a massive 1.2 million bpd.
Additional capacity of 100,000 bpd will be added around the same time from the Nuayyim field while expansion of the Shaybah development in the Empty Quarter will take Saudi Arabia’s total capacity up to the 12.5 million bpd level.
Nasser said Saudi Arabia’s production investment strategy will continue to centre on its desire to keep a supply cushion of 1.5 million to 2 million bpd available to help ensure market stability.
With the additional capacity coming on stream this year Saudi Arabia will have spare production capacity of 4.5 million bpd following recent Opec output cuts.
But while Aramco will reduce rig counts by as much as 20% as it completes these major projects Nasser highlighted the need for additional investment in oil and gas capacity in the years ahead.
Nasser reiterated concerns voiced by Oil Minister Ali Naimi about reduced investment now leading to a supply crunch later.
“We need to recognise that this relatively grim period is just another phase of the business cycle,” he said.
Although Aramco is not talking about investment to take oil capacity any higher at a time when it its capacity cushion is set to climb well above targeted levels, Nasser reasserted the Saudi view that it would respond to demand when it appears.
In the meantime, expansion is still being planned in non-associated natural gas where Aramco want to boost output potential to 9 billion cubic feet per day by 2015 from about 6.2 Bcfd now.
Nasser also promised continued emphasis on exploration and efforts to boost recovery from its reservoirs.