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ARABIA AND PERSIA
Casing yard
Brief history of the country
Saudi Arabia (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) on the Arabian Peninsula borders Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait (north), Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and the Persian Gulf (east), Yemen (south) and The Red Sea (west).
Saudi Arabia was populated by nomadic tribes before Muhammad was born in Mecca in the Hejaz in 571 AD. Tribal leaders then united to create a series of large Arab empires. The Hejaz was under the control of the Sharif of Mecca but the interior (Nejd) remained largely nomadic.
From the 16th century Ottomans claimed the Nejd until the House of Saud emerged in 1744, joining with the Islamic Wahhabi movement. The Ottomans drove them into exile but they returned in 1902, recapturing Riyadh. Supported by the UK, the Sauds then conquered the Ottomans and created an Arab state.
The Sauds progressively took the whole country, uniting it as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. It then became an absolute monarchy governed under conservative Wahhabi lines. Oil was discovered in 1938 and the economy became almost totally dependent on oil exports.
In 1973 Saudi led an oil boycott against any Western countries who supported Israel. However, the country also backed the US in both Gulf wars. The country is repeatedly criticised for its politics and social conditions. In 2011 it was affected by Arab Spring protests as well as a rise in Islamic terrorism.
Although now stable it continues to attract international criticism for human rights abuses. It is in the process of diversifying its economy.
Oil and gas summary
Saudi Arabia occupies 80% of the Arabian Peninsula which formerly consisted of 5 regions; the Hejaz on the west, the Asir in the southwest, the Nejd in the interior, the Al-Ahsa in the east and the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter) in the southeast.
Most of the country is inhospitable Arabian desert, associated semi-desert and shrubland. The main topographical feature is a central plateau which rises at an escarpment near the Red Sea and gradually descends into the Nejd. On the Red Sea coast there is a narrow coastal plain, known as the Tihamah. The southwest province of Asir is mountainous with the 3,133 m Mount Sawda, the highest point. The country's southern borders with the UAE and Oman are not precisely marked.
In 1938, oil was discovered in the Al-Ahsa region along the coast of the Persian Gulf. Production of oil in Dammam in 1938 and development of other oil fields from 1941 under the US-controlled Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) provided Saudi Arabia with prosperity and political leverage internationally. As a member of OPEC, it has often restricted oil output to maintain prices.
Many fields have now been discovered, on and offshore in the Persian Gulf, dominated by the Ghawar field and its offshore extension, Safaniya. These are the largest fields in the world but require the latest technologies to maintain output.
Saudi Aramco is the only operator in the country, except within the Neutral Zone shared with Kuwait. For information on this Zone see Kuwait. Aramco continues to invest in projects which, although large, are unlikely to fully offset the decline of Ghawar when it begins. Many of the newer fields also produce less saleable heavy oil.
Conversely Globalshift forecasts that associated and free gas production both have huge growth potential into a growing Master Gas System, inaugurated in 1982.
SAUDI ARABIA
Map and National Flag
Arabia and Persia
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Riyadh
32.8 mm (2023)
2,149,690
11,040
112
3,544
112
Government
Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian absolute monarchy although the king must comply with Sharia law and the Quran. No political parties or elections are permitted. Outside the Al Saud royal family tribal identity remains strong.
A Consultative Council was established in the early 1990s and a National Dialogue Forum in 2003 but neither has any power. Islamic activists have been the most prominent threat to the government and have perpetrated a number of terrorist acts in the country.
The Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources is responsible for policies concerning oil and gas.
Saudi Aramco is the NOC which owns, operates and develops all energy resources in Saudi Arabia. The company was started before World War 2 by a number of large American companies.
In 1950 Aramco agreed to share profits 50/50 with the government which eventually had taken full control by 1980.
Saudi Arabia was a founder member of OPEC in 1960.
Geology
Saudi Arabia is mostly underlain by the Arabian Basin, onshore and offshore in the Persian Gulf. This foreland basin is wedge-shaped, dipping beneath the Zagros thrust front in eastern Iran. It is extraordinarily rich in hydrocarbons.
The only other basin area in the country underlies the Red Sea, which opened in the Tertiary. Here some offshore gas discoveries have been made and are being developed.
The Arabian Basin (or Persian Gulf Basin) lies on the northeast of the Arabian Plate between the Eurasian and African Plates. It covers much of the onshore Middle East and the offshore Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, all of which are marginal seas of the Indian Ocean.
The Arabian Plate has divergent margins along the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Sheba ridge. On its east the Owen ridge is an intra-oceanic transform fault. There are convergent margins on the north and northeast in Turkey, along the Zagros Mountains on the east of Iran, and along the Makran fold belt in Pakistan, where the plate is subducting beneath the Eurasian plate. The Dead Sea and associated ridges were created by a transform fault on its northwest margin.
The Plate comprises a number of structural regions including the Zagros fold and thrust belt, the Arabian Trough in the central region of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the Gotnia Trough in the northern region covering Iraq and Syria and the Rub-Al-Khali in the southern region in Saudi Arabia and parts of the United Arab Emirates. These were largely established during Palaeozoic continuous continental marine sedimentation on the north east side of Gondwana.
Recognisable structural development of the region began around 800 mm years ago in the Precambrian when a series of islands-arcs and micro-continent terranes were accreted by compression to form the Arabian Plate within Gondwana. This culminated in the Hormuz salt basin around 650 mm years ago.
During the Late Ordovician polar glaciation in Gondwana followed by a rise in sea level in the Early Silurian led to deposition of organic-rich shales, a major source of Palaeozoic hydrocarbons.
The Hercynian Orogeny began in the Late Devonian and the region was in a compressional back-arc-setting. The central Arabian plate was uplifted, tilted eastwards and eroded.
In the late Permian and early Triassic the break-up of Gondwana began with thermal subsidence and extension in the Arabian plate followed by rifting of the Zagros region that opened the Neo-Tethys Sea. This rifting continued until compression during the early Alpine orogeny in the Late Cretaceous which resulted in uplift and erosion and closure of Neo-Tethys Sea.
The Late Alpine Orogeny began in the early Tertiary as the Arabian and Eurasian plates collided to form the Zagros Fold Belt and Mesopotamian Foredeep which was the start of the formation of the foreland Arabian Basin. Meanwhile the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden began to open around 25 mm years ago, separating the African and the Arabian plates.
The Arabian basin accumulated a thick sequence of carbonate reservoirs through the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic during long periods of stable subsidence. Most of the oil in the region originates from Jurassic organic-rich carbonates although source rocks are also present in Paleozoic and Cretaceous sediments. Structures were formed during the Carboniferous (by the Hercynian Orogeny), the Early Triassic (as a result of Zagros rifting), the Early (Oman) Alpine Orogeny and the Late Alpine Orogeny.
Large volumes of gas found in Permo-Triassic sediments also originated from the organic-rich deeply buried shales of early Silurian age.
SAUDI ARABIA: ARABIAN BASIN
Globalshift.co.uk (source: USGS)