Amman: Saudi Arabia is "quadrupling" exploration activities to boost its oil reserves by 25 per cent by 2025, a Saudi Aramco official said yesterday.

Aramco, the state oil firm of the world's top exporter, has 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and a sustainable production capacity of 10.8 million barrels per day (bpd), said Mohammad Al Qahtani, manager, production and facility development department.

"The 260 billion barrels represents 36 per cent of discovered oil resources, this is the so-called oil initially in place. We have 716 billion barrels of discovered resources. We produced 106 billion barrels so far, that is 15 per cent, and 36 per cent is our proven reserves," he told an Arab energy conference.

"We are estimating that by 2025 we will increase total discovered resources up to more than 900 billion barrels," he told the conference in Jordan.

"The role of exploration is to increase the size of the pie and the role of development is to take more out of the pie."

Saudi Arabia has fast tracked plans to boost oil production capacity to 12.5 million bpd by 2009 to help meet growing global demand for oil.

The Gulf state's output capacity now stands at 11.3 million bpd and it has been producing around 9.5 million bpd.

"Over the next five years, we are almost more than quadrupling our exploration activities, keeping the level of exploration for the non-associated gas programme and also heavily increasing our exploration in the crude programme," Al Qahtani said.

He said Aramco was employing technology to overcome the challenges to exploration in the kingdom which is characterised by a diverse geology, harsh environment and some difficulties in acquiring land seismic data.

Aramco has been using advanced and smart well technology at Abqaiq field, which has been producing since 1948.

Fast tracking: Technology employed to overcome challenges

  • Aramco hopes to increase total discovered resources up to more than 900 billion barrels.
  • Saudi output capacity now stands at 11. 3 million bpd and it has been producing around 9.5 million bpd.
  • Saudi Arabia has fast tracked plans to boost oil production capacity to 12.5 million bpd by 2009 to help meet growing global demand for oil.
  • Aramco is employing technology to overcome the challenges to exploration in the kingdom which is characterised by a diverse geology, harsh environment and some difficulties in acquiring land seismic data.