Saudi Aramco bringing shale gas revolution to Arabian Desert

By Yousef Saba

DUBAI, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The shale gyration that made the United States the world's apical lipid shaper is taking signifier successful the Arabian Desert.

Deep successful the sands southeast of Saudi Arabia's elephantine Ghawar oilfield, authorities lipid institution Aramco is pushing up with a earthy state megaproject that could boost the kingdom’s revenues by billions of dollars successful the coming years.

It has brought successful U.S. and Chinese firms similar Halliburton and Sinopec to deploy precocious machinery - including 'walking ‌rigs', towering structures susceptible of moving abbreviated distances without dismantling and reassembling - to velocity up drilling and good completions astatine the Jafurah basin.

While the kingdom has scaled backmost its futuristic giga-projects and reversed plans to assistance lipid capacity, Aramco - the world's biggest ‌oil exporter - has raised its state accumulation targets with this $100 cardinal stake astatine the centre, arsenic it seeks to go a large planetary earthy state player.

Jafurah, estimated to incorporate 229 trillion modular cubic feet of earthy state and 75 cardinal barrels of condensate, is perchance the biggest shale state improvement extracurricular the U.S.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has burned a ​portion of its astir invaluable plus – crude lipid – to powerfulness its grid. Now, with less than 5 years near to fulfil Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 docket to diversify the oil-reliant economy, the unit is connected to regenerate those liquid fuels with gas.

"Jafurah is not conscionable a ample state field: it is simply a strategical level that supports the Kingdom's broader maturation ambitions crossed cardinal sectors, including energy, artificial intelligence, and large industries similar petrochemicals," Aramco said successful a connection successful effect to Reuters questions.

NEW SHALE FRONTIER

On Thursday, Aramco officially announced the commencement of accumulation astatine Jafurah, a milestone for a task that underwent years of incubation mirroring the aboriginal years of the U.S. shale boom. It said output began successful December 2025, a disclosure that Reuters reported that period aft it was included successful the Saudi concern ministry fund statement.

"The fantabulous advancement astatine Jafurah is simply a testament to a ‌decade of relentless innovation and absorption connected worth creation," Aramco’s Upstream President Nasir Al-Naimi told Reuters.

“Early good ⁠performance has been outstanding, validating our high-tech attack and reaffirming the value of this flagship task to our state maturation strategy.”

The maths is simple: Saudi Arabia uses much than 1 cardinal barrels per time (bpd) of crude and substance lipid for home powerfulness generation. Aramco aims to regenerate 500,000 bpd of that by 2030 with gas, freeing up the crude for export. At existent prices of astir $70 a barrel, 500,000 bpd of crude would make ⁠nearly $12.8 cardinal successful gross a year.