Saudi Aramco’s Drilling to Jump 12% Next Year, Ex-Official Says
December 22, 2011, 10:34 AM ESTBy Wael Mahdi
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabian Oil Co. plans to increase its drilling-rig count by 12 percent next year to 145 to boost natural-gas and oil output from its Manifa field, a former executive of state-run company said.
Most of the expansion is for gas development, Sadad al- Husseini said today by e-mail. Al-Husseini was executive vice president for exploration and development at the company known as Saudi Aramco. He founded and runs Husseini Energy, an independent energy consultant in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Aramco will drill for gas onshore in northern Saudi Arabia and near the Shaybah oil field in the Empty Quarter desert, as well as offshore in Hasbah field in the Persian Gulf, said al-Husseini. The company will have 50 drilling rigs for oil, 50 for gas, 15 exploration rigs and 30 workover rigs to maintain existing wells next year, he said.
Most of the oil drilling is to “replace capacity declines that result from ongoing production,” he said. “The oil drilling will not add new capacity, except for the Manifa drilling.”
Saudi Aramco increased the number of drilling rigs this year to 130, more than figures given out by rig contractors, according to al-Husseini. The nation currently pumps around 10 million barrels a day of crude, he said.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, is increasing the number of its drilling rigs by the end of this year to 118 from 92, Baker Hughes Inc. Chief Executive Officer Chad Deaton said in March. Nabors Industries Ltd., the world’s largest onshore drilling contractor, has 30 rigs in the kingdom by end of first quarter this year and said in March it had talks with Saudi Aramco to add more rigs.
No one at Saudi Aramco’s headquarter in Dhahran could be reached for comment on the rig-count increase, as Thursday is weekend in the country.
--Editors: John Buckley, Raj Rajendran
To contact the reporter on this story: Wael Mahdi in Khobar at wmahdi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net
