Saudi announces discovery of natural gas fields across four regions

Saudi Arabia has discovered natural gas fields in four regions of the kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday, quoting Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

The Energy Minister said that state oil company Saudi Aramco has discovered natural gas fields in the central area of the country, in the Empty Quarter desert, near its northern border and in the eastern region.

The fields are Shadoon, in the central region; Shehab and Shurfa, in the Empty Quarter, in the southeastern region; Umm Khansar, near the northern border with Iraq; and Samna, in the eastern region.

The five new natural gas fields across the kingdom that can produce over 100 million cubic feet per day in total.

The capacity of the fields are reported as follows:

– Shadoon, in the central region southeast of Riyadh, producing 27 million cubic feet of gas per day with 3,300 barrels of condensate
– Shehab, in the empty quarter, with 31 million cubic feet per day of gas
– Shorfa, in the empty quarter, with 16.9 million cubic feet per day
– Umm Khansir, with 2 million cubic feet per day of unconventional natural gas
– Samna, with three different wells totaling 26.7 million cubic feet per day of unconventional natural gas

The Saudi Energy Minister added that two of the gas fields, Samna and Umm Khansar, are “non-conventional”. Non-conventional deposits, also known as shale, are usually trapped in tight pore spaces, requiring special extraction techniques.

In related developments, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, received a phone call today from French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday. During the call, they discussed the situation in Ukraine and discussed the impact of the crisis on energy markets, according to SPA. The Crown Prince affirmed the kingdom’s keenness on maintaining the stability and balance of oil markets and its commitment to the OPEC+ agreement.

With inputs from Bloomberg