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SAUDI ARABIA - Shaybah.

Article Excerpt
A super-giant discovered in the early 1970s - with light/sweet oil in place having been estimated at about 14.3 bn, including 7 bn barrels recoverable, plus 25 TCF of gas - Shaybah came on stream in mid-1998 for tests. Its capacity reached 500,000 b/d in early 1999 and it was inaugurated in March 1999. Other projects include the phase 2 expansion of Shaybah, which will add 300,000 b/d of extra light crude by 2008.

A group of Jacobs Engineering with SNC Lavalin and the local Saudi Consulting Services (SaudConsult) is carrying out the FEED package on the expansion of Shaybah. The Shaybah expansion involves installation of new wet crude handling facilities, dehydration and desalter units, a GOSP, pipelines and gas reinjection facilities. The total project cost is estimated to be about $3,000m.

AEL from the field is transferred through a pipeline to Abqaiq for blending with AL. About 880 MCF/d of gas is reinjected into the field (see background in Vol. 61, No. 14).

The Divided Zone: The divided (formerly "neutral") zone is shared equally by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, under a treaty signed on Dec. 2, 1922 to settle a territorial dispute between the two countries. The treaty was revised on July 7, 1965. The joint administration accord was supplemented in 1969 by an agreement whereby the northern half was administered by Kuwait and...