Saudi Arabia aims to export as much as 3 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2030, the chief executive of the Kingdom’s oil giant Saudi Aramco said on Tuesday.
Aramco will solely develop Saudi Arabia’s conventional and unconventional gas reserves, and the options for exports include exports via pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG), Aramco’s president and chief executive Amin Nasser said at an industry event in London.
In November last year, Nasser said at an event in Dubai that Saudi Aramco, already a top global oil producer but not as strong in gas production, will boost efforts to grow its natural gas output, from both conventional and unconventional reserves.
Saudi Aramco’s gas development program is expected to attract as much as US$150 billion in investment over the next decade, Nasser said. Natural gas production is expected to jump to 23 billion standard cubic feet a day from the current 14 billion cubic feet a day, Aramco’s top executive said in Dubai a few months ago.
“We also have world-class unconventional gas resources that are rapidly supplementing our large conventional resources. Because a significant proportion of this unconventional gas is rich in both liquids and ethane, its production will play an important role in the further growth of the Kingdom’s chemicals sector,” Nasser said, noting that as at November 2018, Aramco had 16 drilling rigs concentrating on unconventional gas and more than 70 wells completed in 2018.
Aramco also plans to create an integrated international gas business, backed by the vast conventional and unconventional domestic resources, the manager said.
In an interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Nasser said:
“By 2030, 75 percent of the utilities sector (in the Kingdom) will be on gas, and the rest will be renewable and nuclear alternatives. So we will have gas going outside the Kingdom to export markets, either by pipeline or by LNG. So (we) will be exporters for the first time.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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