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Bahrain Seeks Big Oil’s Help to Develop New Shale Discovery

Bahrain will invite international oil companies to help it develop its first major discovery in decades, hoping to begin production within five years. Production from the new discovery could one day reach 200,000 barrels a day, according to Abdulrahman Ali Buali, a member of Bahrain’s Council of Representatives. The amount of oil and gas that can be recovered from hard-to-reach pockets in shale rocks under the sea is uncertain, and development is potentially an expensive proposition. Halliburton Co. will drill two wells this year in the offshore Khaleej Al Bahrain Basin to appraise how much of the oil contained underground is actually recoverable. Bahrain estimates there are 81.5 billion barrels of shale oil and 13.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas of resources in the basin. Oman’s Rub Al-Khali Basin area contains an estimated 24 billion barrels of oil, but only 1.2 billion barrels are “technically recoverable,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Jordan’s Wadi Sirhan Basin resource holds about 4 billion barrels, and just 100 million can be extracted, according to the EIA. Both deposits are onshore. Source: Bloomberg, 4/4/2018.

TCGR Note: Here comes the Middle East to shale oil & gas and fracking. This all sounds easy, but my require different methods and skills for recovery, so it will not be a one-size-fits-all solution for each basin. Also, drilling and recovery off-shore can be significantly more costly, so that opportunity needs to be evaluated separately.