Saudi Arabia's gas reserves put at 267 tcf 

(MENAFN - Arab News) Saudi Arabia's gas reserves stood at 267 trillion cubic feet in 2008, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi said in remarks reported yesterday.

The figure Al-Naimi gave according to a report carried by the official Saudi Press Agency was four billion cubic feet higher than an estimate Saudi Aramco data showed earlier yesterday.

Aramco's figure shows an increase of about 4 percent in gas reserves compared to 2007.

Al-Naimi said the offshore field of Karan is expected to produce 1.8 billion cubic feet per day of non-associated gas. Saudi Arabia awarded in February the contracts for the field, its first non-associated offshore gas field project.

"The program of Saudi Aramco to develop the reserves and gas production will continue. For example the Karan offshore field is expected to add 1.8 billion cubic feet per day to the production capacity," he said, without giving details.

Al-Naimi, speaking at the inaugural meeting of a Saudi energy association, that more than half of the gas reserves were in the form of non-associated gas without giving an exact figure. Non-associated gas constituted 58 percent of the gas produced in the Kingdom, said Al-Naimi. Saudi Arabia holds the world's fourth-largest gas reserves and the world's largest recoverable oil reserves, with more than a fifth of the total.

Aramco's annual gas production rose 2.7 percent to 3 trillion cubic feet. Daily gas production averaged 8.3 billion cfd, a rise of 4.3 percent from 2007, data showed.

Aramco plans to raise its non-associated gas processing capacity to 9 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) by 2015 from 6.2 billion cfd currently to meet soaring demand for industrial use in the Kingdom, an Aramco executive told Reuters on Saturday. Oil output for 2008 rose by an average 400,000 barrels per day from 2007, Aramco said in its annual review.

Average daily oil production reached 8.9 million barrels per day in 2008, resulting in a total production of 3.26 billion barrels for the whole year versus 3.11 billion barrels in 2007, according to the figures.

Aramco included in its 2008 review a discovery of Niyashin, a new oilfield and two other gas fields, Arabiyah and Rabib. Crude exports rose to 2.50 billion barrels in 2008 from 2.407 billion in 2007, the review showed.

The Far East accounted for 52.7 percent of crude oil exports in 2008, the United States for 20 percent and Europe for 5.2 percent. That compared with 52.1 percent for the Far East, 20.5 percent for the United States and 5.1 percent for Europe in 2007.

The Kingdom, OPEC's largest producer, renewed its commitments to increase its oil production capacity to 12.5 million bpd this year to meet future supply needs. Saudi Arabia has an oil output of just below 8 million bpd in line with OPEC agreements to remove 4.2 million bpd from the oil market due to a decline in global oil demand.

Meanwhile, OPEC warned yesterday that "considerable risks remain" on the oil market as it again reduced its forecast for world crude demand.

"Considerable risks remain as oil market fundamentals are far from balanced due to the persistent contraction in demand and growing supply overhang," the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries wrote in its latest monthly report.