Saudi Arabia's national oil and gas company Saudi Aramco has started the development of the Jafurah unconventional gas field in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the company has awarded subsurface and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for the Jafurah Gas Plant and gas compression facilities, as well as infrastructure and related surface facilities worth US$10bn. Overall, capital expenditure at Jafurah expected to reach US$68bn over the first 10 years of development.
Covering a 17,000 km2 area, the Jafurah shale play is estimated to hold 200 tcf (5,660 bcm) of gas in place, and gas production is expected to ramp up from 200 mcf/d (2.1 bcm/year) in 2025 to 2,000 mcf/d (20.6 bcm/year) by 2030, with 418 mcf/d (4.3 bcm/year) of ethane and around 630,000 bbl/d of gas liquids and condensates.
Saudi Arabia has the 6th largest gas reserves in the world, with 9 400 bcm at end-2020 (4% of the world’s total reserves). The country produced 97 bcm of natural gas in 2020 (+3%/year since 2010). The production has been multiplied by 2.5 since 2000 and is exclusively consumed domestically.