Reuters quoted an official at state oil giant Saudi Aramco as saying that Saudi Arabia plans to bring online in 2013 the last of the giant oilfield projects on its expansion slate.
Aramco slowed work at the 900,000 barrels per day Moneefa project as it looked to cut costs on oil service contracts at the field and across its energy industry. A slump in global energy demand has made further oilfield development less urgent for the world's top oil exporter.
Mr Fahad Al Moosa Aramco's vice president of Northern Area Oil Operations said that after delaying the project in 2009, no further delays were envisaged for now. Sometime in 2013, it is on schedule. We are working on the detailed design."
He said that Aramco delayed the start date for the multi billion dollar project earlier 2009 to 2013 from the initial schedule of 2011. Early work on building a causeway to offshore facilities was near completion and site preparation work was underway. Saudi Arabia reached crude capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day in 2009 bringing on line fields including the 1.2 million barrels per day Khurais, the largest ever single addition to global oil production capacity. Aramco is developing Moneefa to compensate for declining capacity at other fields rather than to further boost total Saudi capacity.
The kingdom has outlined plans to boost capacity to 15 million barrels per day but sees no need to do so until global demand erodes spare capacity. It is pumping around 8 million barrels per day and is sitting on around 4.5 million of idled infrastructure. Aramco plans to process Moneefa's heavy crude at two new 400,000 barrels per day JV refineries. It is building one of the plants with France's Total and another with US major Conoco Phillips.
Mr Al Moosa reiterated that the Saudi Karan gas field would start pumping in mid 2011. The kingdom is prioritizing gas field development to meet rapidly rising domestic demand from power stations and heavy industry. Karan is Saudi Arabia's first offshore gas project not associated with oil production. He said that Aramco was still looking at plans to develop the Hasbah gas field. This is in the early stages and is under review.”
