Shaybah Oil Field is a super-giant disputed

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

under the control of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and is located in the northern edge of the Rub' Al-Khali/ Empty Quarter desert. It is located about 10 km south of the border to

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

, which is a straight line drawn in the desert. It is 40 km south of the eastern part of Liwa Oasis of Abu Dhabi. Shaybah has housing facilities for 1,000 men, administrative offices, an air-strip, a fire station, recreation areas, maintenance and support workshops, and power stations for generation and distribution. There is a 650-kilometer fibre optic cable linking Shaybah to the main radio system at

Abqaiq Abqaiq ( ar, بقيق, Biqayq) is a Saudi Aramco gated community and oil-processing facility located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, located in the desert 60 km southwest of the Dhahran-Dammam-Khobar metropolitan area, and north o ...

. Shaybah's weather is extreme, with the temperature dropping to 10 degrees Celsius on winter nights, rising to around 50 degrees Celsius in the summer daytime. Dust storms are a regular occurrence.

History

Shaybah Shaybah, also called as Zararah, is a settlement dominated by a major crude oil production oil site, the Shaybah oil field, in Saudi Arabia, located approximately from the northern edge of the Rub' Al-Khali ("Empty Quarter") desert. It is about ...

was developed for the purposes of exploiting the Shaybah oilfield. It was established by

Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...

during the 1990s, and, prior to this, only the rough tracks used by early exploration teams existed in this isolated desert region. All materials for the establishment and construction of Shaybah were transported the 800 kilometres from Dhahran to Shaybah by road. When established, the Shaybah oilfield had estimated reserves of over of crude oil and of gas.

brought the project on-stream in 1998. The crude is Arabian extra light, a high-quality crude grade with a

specific gravity Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity for liquids is nearly always measured with respect to water (molecule), wa ...

of 42 degrees api and a sulphur content of less than 0.7 percent. The oil reservoir is found at a depth of 1,494 meters and is itself 122 meters thick. The oil pipeline from the Shaybah field to

is 638 kilometres long, while the pipelines within the field itself total 735 kilometres in length. In 2016 Aramco increased oil output from 750,000 b/d to 1 million b/d. A drone attack by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group occurred on the field on Saturday 17 August 2019 with aims at disrupting the oil supply.

Airport

A small airport ( Shaybah Airport) is located in Shaybah for the exclusive use of

offering flights for its employees to

Dammam Dammam ( ar, الدمّام ') is the fifth-most populous city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina. It is the capital of the Eastern Province. With a total population of 1,252,523 as of 2020. The judicial and administrative ...

, Jeddah, Riyadh and

al-Hasa Al-Ahsa or Al-Hasa may refer to: * Al-Ahsa Governorate, a governorate in Saudi Arabia * Al-Ahsa Oasis, an oasis region in eastern Saudi Arabia * Hofuf, also known as Al-Ahsa, an urban center in the Al-Ahsa Oasis * Al-Ahsa International Airport, Hof ...

References

External links

Crown Prince Abdullah inaugurates Shaybah OilfieldShaybah as seen from space (zoomable)
The cluster on the left is the Saudi Aramco town of Shaybah, and on the right is the Shaybah Gas Oil Separation Plant-2. Zoom out for a perspective of the remoteness of Shaybah.
The Magic Shaybah Oil Field in Saudi Arabia
{{Saudi Arabia topics Populated places in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco oil and gas fields Geography of Saudi Arabia Oil fields of Saudi Arabia Natural gas fields in Saudi Arabia

History

Airport

See also

References

External links