Aramco reveals plans to boost heavy crude production

Saudi Arabia is to make a strategic shift towards heavy crude production in response to growing global demand for heavy crude.

Senior officials at state oil company Saudi Aramco say the kingdom is targeting heavy crude oil production of 1.05 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2010, up from virtually zero today.

The heavy crude will provide an additional 42 per cent of additional capacity to the kingdom's targeted production of about 12 million b/d by 2009. Saudi Arabia currently produces about 9.5 million b/d of oil, nearly all of which is Arabian Light.

'During that period [2010] and after, we will tap into our heavy crude reserves,' says Saudi Aramco senior vice-president for industrial relations Khalid al-Falih. Most of the production will come from the offshore Manifa field. 'We are already producing some volumes from the Safaniya field, but Manifa will be our first mega project with a targeted production capacity of 900,000 b/d.'

Aramco is pushing ahead with an $11,000 million project to develop the offshore field, which has proven reserves of about 10,000 million barrels. The company is due to start technical clarifications on 12 December with bidders for the first major construction package on the project (MEED 1:12:06).

'Our reservoirs are maturing and there are ample opportunities to increase output further from existing fields. But it will depend on demand from consumers, as there is a major bottleneck in global capacity to refine heavy crude.'

New heavy oil capacity is

also planned in the Divided

Zone (DZ) between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Mina Saud-based Saudi Arabian Texaco (SAT), part of the US' Chevron Corporation, has started an enhanced oil recovery programme at the onshore Wafra field. The estimated $300 million-350 million pilot project is aimed at the injection of steam into the heavy oil reserves (MEED 11:8:06).

'Learnings from the large-scale steam flood project will determine how to optimise full-field development,' said Chevron in a statement to MEED on 5 December. 'It will open up opportunities for economically developing other heavy oil reservoirs in the region.'

Under its development plan, SAT plans to operate 16 steam injection and 25 production wells to produce 300,000 b/d of additional crude from estimated reserves of 3,000 million barrels. 'Our early tests indicate that Wafra has uptapped reservoirs of heavy crude that may be unlocked into billions of barrels of reserves,' the Chevron statement said.

SAT is the operator of Wafra under a long-term concession agreement signed with Aramco, which is due to expire in 2009. The DZ straddles the marine and land border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The area produces at least 500,000 b/d of oil and more than 100 million cubic feet a day of associated gas.