State-oil firm Saudi Aramco will add 550,000 b/d of production capacity at its currently-producing Khurais and Shaybah fields by 2017, CEO Khalid al-Falih announced on 5 March. These are the first major upstream expansion announcements for over six years and come as Aramco eyes the finishing line on its most recent upstream project, the 900,000 b/d offshore Manifa field development.
The increments are a 300,000 b/d expansion at Khurais and a push to 1mn b/d at Shaybah. “After Manifa, 900,000 b/d by end 2014, we have a project that we already have started developing. We are expanding Khurais which came on stream in 2009 to 1.5mn b/d and we will be doing Shaybah, 250,000 b/d,” Mr Falih said. The additions will, like Manifa, not be a net addition to existing production capacity of around 12.5mn b/d. “All this will allow us to offset decline that will happen over the years and decades to come,” Mr Falih added. The expansion project at Khurais will be completed by 2016-17 and Shaybah by 2017. (CONTINUED - 741 WORDS)
