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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (172483)	12/24/2012 4:37:49 AM
From: Dennis Roth	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206098

Saudi Arabia power plans hinge on shale gas Verity Ratcliffe 21 December 2012 \| 14:29 GMT interfaxenergy.com Saudi Arabia may lead the world in terms of oil production, but the same is not true for gas, where supply is struggling to keep pace with demand. Around 52% of the country’s power generating capacity is gas-fired and, with electricity demand forecast to rise from around 50 gigawatts to more than 70 GW by 2020 and 120 GW by 2032, ministers had feared the country would be forced to start importing LNG. That, at least, was until the country began to explore its shale gas potential. Saudi Arabia’s shale gas reserves are estimated at 18.26 trillion cubic metres. However, developing the country’s shale will be particularly challenging because of low permeability and depth of the reservoirs, Adnan Kanaan, general supervisor for gas reservoir management at Saudi Aramco, said earlier this year. Aramco is working with Baker Hughes, Halliburton and Schlumberger on development options for these reserves. However, while the state-owned oil major may be familiar with technical challenges of unconventional gas production – of Saudi Arabia’s 2.8 tcm of unassociated gas, 75% has high sulphur content or is in a tight formation – with a gas price of only $0.75 per million Btu (MMBtu) it is not, at the moment, economical to extract. However the extent and viability of Saudi Arabia’s shale gas reserves will have a huge impact on how future power is generated. A royal decree issued in 2006 said that all future coastal power stations should run on heavy fuel oil (HFO), and Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC) is planning to develop all of its new capacity as HFO-fired plants. However, “if we have gas, we will change some or all of the projects to gas-fired”, Khaled Rashed, of SEC’s tendering department, told Interfax. “Next year will be vital,” said Rashed. “If we need a project to be operating by 2017-2018, the deadline for launching it would be June 2013. We have to know whether we do or do not have this gas within the next six months.” [snip]