Saudi Aramco said it is likely to increase light sour crude output from two of its oilfields by 550,000 bpd between 2016 and 2017 to re-balance its crude quality and extend the lifespan of the mature fields
The company’s chief executive, Khalid al-Falih, said the expansion of the Shaybah and Khurais fields will start up within a few months of each other, with operations at the former field starting first.
“This will bring it up to one million barrels per day. We’re in the process of awarding the contract in the next few days,” he said, adding that an ongoing project at Shaybah will also add 250,000 bpd of natural gas liquid (NGL) output by end-2014.
The Khurais expansion project is currently at the front-end engineering stage and the expansion to increase the field’s output by 300,000 bpd to 1.5 million bpd will be completed by 2017, a Saudi Aramco source said.
Referring to the new Manifa oilfield, which started production earlier in 2013, the source said, “We’re tilting towards more heavy crude. So we wanted to introduce more extra light, a little more light from Khurais, that will basically allow us to match the market needs while at the same time having that extended plateau.”
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