The Oil & Gas industry in the Middle East is in the process of undergoing a sea change, with many regions’ conventional oil and gas reserves facing depletion. In the US, it is easy to turn to fracking with its abundant water supply and 20-odd years of experience, however, in the Middle East region, it is not so easy to tap these unconventional reserves.
Saudi Arabia has announced that it has massive unconventional gas reserves, this would ease its reliance on oil for energy, and therefore boost crude oil exports, bringing in more revenue.
However, the question is, how long will it take to get the shale gas out of the ground, bearing in mind that infrastructure must be built to access those very remote gas fields. The second question is how are they going to frack those gas reserves without the billions of litres of fresh water needed to do the fracking process?
With no new waterless fracking technologies on the horizon that can be used at the depths these unconventional gas resources are at; and desalination proving to be a very, very costly process that will send the cost of getting that gas out of the ground soaring to untenable levels.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has announced a focussed plan to begin production on these shale gas fields by the end of 2016, just three years away. To make this a reality, someone needs to come up with a way of extracting shale gas using less water, or some other non-water based fracking fluid, and fast.
Could the costs of getting that gas out of the ground, and the challenges of fracking those gas reserves mean that this seeming boon for the Kingdom might actually be a complete bust?
