This week’s MEOG covers the discovery of new gas fields in Saudi Arabia and a potential concession deal in Oman.

Saudi Arabia announced over the weekend that state oil firm Saudi Aramco has discovered new gas fields in four regions of the Kingdom, boosting the size of its conventional and unconventional gas reserves.

On February 27, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud as saying that Aramco had discovered five new gas fields – three conventional and two unconventional – in the centre of the country, the south-eastern Rub’ Al-Khali (Empty Quarter), near the border with Iraq, and in the oil and gas-rich Eastern Province.

According to the company’s 2020 annual report, Aramco has a total conventional and unconventional raw gas processing capacity of 18.3bn cubic feet (518mn cubic metres) per day which primarily feeds into the Master Gas System network, which in turn has a current capacity of 9.6 bcf (272 mcm) per day following expansion in 2017 and 2018.

The company achieved a single-day gas production record of 10.7 bcf (303 mcm) in mid-2020 while producing an average of 9.03 bcf (256 mcm) per day during the year.

Meanwhile, Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MoEM) is holding talks with Shell and TotalEnergies regarding a potential deal to develop gas from the Sultanate’s Block 11 concession, expanding a December agreement.

The pair signed deals in December for the development of Block 10 and for gas sales from the licence alongside Oman’s state-owned OQ and Marsa LNG, which is an affiliate of TotalEnergies and the Omani firm.

Speaking during an event held by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), MoEM undersecretary Salim al-Aufi said: “Discussions are ongoing now to finalise the commercial agreement between the government and the same [Block 10] partners for Block 11,”

The deal for the adjacent Block 10 concession was signed with the Sultanate’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals and awarded Shell operatorship with a stake of 53.45%, while state oil firm OQ holds 13.36% and the Marsa Liquefied Natural Gas joint venture between TotalEnergies and OQ has taken 33.19%. Block 10 lies within the Greater Barik area in central Oman and was previously part of the giant Block 6 concession.

©2022 bne IntelliNews , source Magazine