Shaybah Sets Standard for Generation
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Author: Ahmad Dialdin (Saudi Aramco News)
Released 19 March 2008
SHAYBAH, March 17, 2008 -- For 75 years, Saudi Aramco has been a pioneer in the world of energy. As the company celebrates its anniversary, it can look back on a history of impressive feats. One of its most impressive is found deep in the sweltering expanses of the Rub‘ al-Khali, in a nondescript sabkha (dry lake bed), known as Shaybah.
A drilling rig works at the Shaybah project site in December 1996. The Shaybah project has helped define Saudi Aramco.
(Photo by Hussain A. Al-Ramadan)
The year is 1951. It has been less than 20 years since the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with Standard Oil of California to explore for oil within the country. The first teams of geologists have been sent out to the Rub’ al-Khali, taking on the seemingly impossible task of searching through 650,000 square kilometers of desert in hopes of finding oil.
By the 1960s, drilling has begun throughout the desert. In 1968, as the company becomes the first to produce 1 billion barrels of oil in less than a year, the Shaybah Field is discovered in the northeastern corner of the desert, holding reserves - as would later be learned - of more than 18.9 billion barrels of Arabian Extra Light crude oil and 25 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas.
Fast forward to the 1970s. Attempts are made to develop Shaybah, but such a venture proves to be too expensive and beyond the capabilities of available technologies.
It’s 1995. With the advent of advanced technologies such as horizontal wells and three-dimensional seismic surveying, the time is right, and the stage is set. Saudi Aramco initiates the project to gather, treat and transport oil from Shaybah to Abqaiq plants. Less than a year of planning later, construction begins with the vital 386-kilometer access road between the border town of Selwa and the Shaybah site. Once completed, travel between Dhahran and Shaybah — a journey of nearly 800 kilometers - is cut down from four days to a mere 12 hours.
A major pipeline is under construction at the Shaybah project site in August 1997.
(Photo by Faisal I. Al-Dossary)
Over the next year and a half, giant trucks carry seemingly impossible loads across the desert in a constant stream of materials, equipment and manpower. As endless tons of material, pipes, concrete, sand and steel are delivered to this empty sabkha, thousands of men dedicate 50 million hours to bringing the facility to life.
The industrial complex begins to take shape. The main facilities include three gas-oil separation plants (GOSPs) and a gas compression plant, several utilities plants and control rooms, along with an airstrip, living quarters, and two links between Shaybah and Abqaiq: a 650-kilometer fiber-optic communications cable and a 630-kilometer pipeline to transport oil.
Finally, on July 2, 1998, the Shaybah project goes onstream ahead of schedule, producing 500,000 barrels of oil per day. In just two short years, from a dry lake bed in the middle of a harsh desert, with no roads, no infrastructure, no water, no shade, nothing but sand as far as the eye can see, Saudi Aramco creates a modern oasis for 750 employees, a self-sufficient oil-production facility for the country and a vital provider of energy for the world.
The finished Shaybah facilities.
(Photo by Saeed Al-Zahrani)
On March 10, 1999, then-Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz Al-Saud inaugurates the Shaybah field in the first ceremony of its kind to take place in the Rub‘ al-Khali.
And that’s not all. Saudi Aramco plans to end its 75th year by boosting Shaybah’s production by 250,000 barrels per day. There is already ongoing construction of a grass-roots facility comprising additional GOSPs, utilities plants and increased pipeline capacity, along with additional housing and support facilities.
Shaybah has become a key element in the company’s 75 years of bringing prosperity to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and providing energy to the world.
(Article by Ahmad Dialdin)