LNG

Sempra Infrastructure, a subsidiary of California-based utility Sempra, has signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with US firm Bechtel Energy for Phase II of the Port Arthur LNG export project in Texas.

Santos Ltd, the Australian operator of two liquefied natural gas export plants and a main shareholder in Papua New Guinea LNG assets, has seen its shares surge on take-over speculation, separately involving the Saudi Arabian Oil Company and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Saudi Arabia, the latest entrant into the LNG market with two supply contracts signed in Texas, has discovered seven more oil and gas fields in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province and in the Empty Quarter.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) had just discovered “two unconventional oil fields, a reservoir of light Arabian oil, two natural gas fields, and two natural gas reservoirs” in recent weeks.

Two unconventional oil fields and one reservoir were discovered in the Saudi Eastern Province while the two natural gas fields and two gas reservoirs are in the Empty Quarter.

The “Ladam” unconventional oil field was discovered in the Eastern Province after the flow of very light Arabian oil in the Ladam-2 well at a rate of 5,100 barrels per day, accompanied by about 4.9 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.

In addition to having much more oil and gas than Texas, Aramco was still happy to sign to supply agreements with the Port Arthur LNG project and the Rio Grande LNG joint venture.

Discoveries list

Outlining its own recent discoveries, Aramco added that the “Al-Farouk” unconventional oil field was discovered in the Eastern Province after Arab ultra-light oil flowed from the Al-Farouk-4 well at a rate of 4,557 barrels per day, accompanied by about 3.79 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.

The “Unayzah” reservoir was discovered in the “Mazalij” field in the Eastern Province, after Arab Light oil flowed from the Mazalij-62 well at a rate of 1,780 barrels per day, accompanied by about 0.7 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.

The “Al-Jahaq” resources were found in the Empty Quarter after natural gas flowed from the “Al-Arab-C” reservoir in Al-Jahaq-1 well at a rate of 5.3 million standard cubic feet per day, and from the “Al-Arab-D” reservoir in the same well at a rate of 1.1 million standard cubic feet per day. 

The Empty Quarter is the largest continuous sand desert in the world and is almost the size of France, covering about 650,000 square kilometres of arid and inhospitable terrain - containing nothing but oil and gas.

The “Al-Katuf” field was discovered in the Empty Quarter after natural gas flowed into Al-Katuf-1 well at a rate of 7.6 million standard cubic feet per day, accompanied by about 40 barrels per day of condensate.

The “Hanifa” reservoir was found in the “Asikra” field in the Empty Quarter after natural gas flowed in the Asikra-6 well at a rate of 4.9 million standard cubic feet per day.

LNG deals

Aramco has signed a second US LNG accord to receive volumes from another Texas export, the Port Arthur liquefaction joint venture in Texas being developed by Sempra Infrastucture, and has followed up on a deal signed earlier in June with the Rio Grande export project in the Port of Brownsville.

Sempra has signed a non-binding Heads of Agreement as part of a 20-year deal for Aramco to offtake 5 million tonnes per annum from the Port Arthur LNG Phase Two expansion.

The accord also contemplates Aramco taking a 25 percent participation in the project-level equity of Phase Two.

The Aramco deal with the Port Arthur project follows an earlier accord signed by the Saudis in mid-June 2024 with NextDecade Corp., the developer of the Rio Grande LNG export plant in Texas.

Aramco and NextDecade confirmed a non-binding accord for the supply of cargoes from the future Train 4 of the Rio Grande plant being constructed at the Port of Brownsville.

That Heads of Agreement was for 20 years and was also with the upstream division of Aramco.

The Rio Grande project is located on 984 acres of land which has been leased long term and includes 15,000 feet of frontage on the Brownsville Ship Channel. 

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), which recently signed two US LNG accords in Texas, has awarded contracts worth $25 billion to boost its own strategic natural gas production in the Middle East Kingdom.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) has signed a second US LNG accord to receive volumes from another Texas export, the Port Arthur liquefaction joint venture in Texas being developed by Sempra Infrastucture, and has followed up on a deal signed earlier in June with the Rio Grande export project in the Port of Brownsville.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the largest oil exporter, is benefiting from the decision to switch to more natural gas as Aramco shares rose after the June share offering and gas plans were advanced by the award of an engineering contract to a unit of Chinese major Sinopec.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the largest oil exporter, has just awarded a $7.7 billion engineering contract for domestic natural gas while also completing the bidding process against Shell to acquire the LNG interests of Pavilion Energy of Singapore.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the largest oil exporter, posted a 25 percent plunge in annual profits, though still increased its dividend for investors and outlined its plans to investment more in LNG and in domestic natural gas output.

Saipem, the Italian LNG and energy engineering company, has completed the South Gas Compression Plant Pipelines project to increase the life of a substantial number of natural gas wells in the Haradh and Hawiyah fields in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) project is aimed at reducing the use of oil and increasing the use of natural gas as the primary fuel for several local industries.

Saipem, based in Milan, said the scope of work encompassed the procurement and construction of a system of pipelines of various diameters, with an overall length of over 700 kilometres (435 miles).

The venture additionally included flowlines, trunklines, and transmission lines, as well as associated facilities for the transportation of gas from various points of storage and distribution inside the facilities, such as liquid station separations, remote headers, gas gathering manifolds and off plot tie-in facilities.

Challenges

“The project presented challenges from a logistics, safety, security and project management point of view,” stated Saipem.

Dhahran-based Aramco has said that increasing natural gas output was a strategic priority and the company had successfully advanced multiple gas projects in 2023.

The Haradh and Hawiyah fields for associated gas are key projects.

Aramco’s Hawiyah Gas Plant expansion is part of the Haradh gas increment programme.

Construction at the Hawiyah Unayzah Gas Reservoir Storage, the first underground natural gas storage project in the Kingdom, has also been completed and injection activities commenced.

Aramco made two large natural gas field discoveries in November 2023 while additionally starting output in a Saudi shale gas basin called South Ghawar.

The two Saudi natural gas field discoveries were made in the Eastern Province and the Empty Quarter regions respectively.

Saudi shale gas

Analysts said that the discovery of more natural gas reservoirs is expected to further Aramco’s strategic plans to increase gas production by over 50 percent with the aim of meeting all domestic demand by 2030.

Earlier in November Aramco announced that it had begun production of unconventional tight gas from its South Ghawar operational area, two months ahead of schedule.

Unconventional tight gas, also known as shale gas, is typically found in reserves where hydrocarbons are tightly trapped within rock layers.

Extracting this gas demands specialised techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for extraction.

The commissioned facilities at South Ghawar currently have a processing capacity of 300 million standard cubic feet per day of raw gas and 38,000 barrels per day for condensate.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the world’s largest oil production group, has signed definitive agreements to acquire a strategic minority stake in MidOcean Energy for $500 million and thus enter the liquefied natural gas sector initially in Australia.