Saudi Arabian Oil Co plans to increase its drilling rig count by 12% in 2012 to 145 to boost natural gas and oil output from its Manifa field.

Mr Sadad al Husseini said last week that most of the expansion is for gas development. Mr Al Husseini was executive vice president for exploration and development at the company known as Saudi Aramco. He founded and runs Husseini Energy, an independent energy consultant in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Aramco will drill for gas onshore in northern Saudi Arabia and near the Shaybah oil field in the Empty Quarter desert, as well as offshore in Hasbah field in the Arabian Gulf. The company will have 50 drilling rigs for oil, 50 for gas, 15 exploration rigs and 30 work over rigs to maintain existing wells in 2012.

Mr al Husseini said that the oil drilling is mainly to replace capacity declines that result from ongoing production and will not add new capacity, except for the Manifa drilling.

Saudi Aramco increased the number of drilling rigs this year to 130, more than figures given out by rig contractors. The nation currently pumps around 10 million barrels a day of crude.

Baker Hughes CEO Mr Chad Deaton said in March that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, is increasing the number of its drilling rigs by the end of this year to 118 from 92. Nabors Industries Ltd, the world’s largest onshore drilling contractor, had 30 rigs in the kingdom at the end of the first quarter this year and said in March it held talks with Saudi Aramco to add more rigs.

Saudi Aramco's CEO Mr Khalid Al Falih said that Saudi Aramco is increasing the number of drilling rigs in its Manifa field to 20 next year from the current eight. The company will spend about USD 17 billion developing the giant field, located in shallow water in the Arabian Gulf, to bring the full field development 10 years ahead of its planned schedule on December 6th 2011. The field will start production in 2013.

Halliburton Co won a contract from Saudi Aramco in 2008 to drill for oil in the offshore part of Manifa field. Mr Halliburton said in April that Saudi Aramco was planning to increase the rig count by approximately 30 percent in 2012 from its levels at the beginning of the year, with 60 percent of this increase to be assigned to the Manifa project. The project was delayed due to the global recession.

(Sourced from www.arabianbusiness.com)