Gas shortage squeezes crude output


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Gulf states seeking to prolong the lives of ageing oilfields face a shortage of the gas needed to pump into wells to maintain crude output. And the problem is rapidly worsening. The UAE last year was injecting 1.7 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of gas into oilfields to maintain production levels.

The need for gas to use this way could rise by as much as 8 per cent a year for the next decade, said Fereidun Fesharaki, the vice chairman of the consultancy FACTS Global Energy. By 2020, demand could reach 4.2 billion cfd, approaching the nation's total current gas output from onshore fields. If Abu Dhabi, the nation's main producer, had not pledged most of its offshore gas output to supply Asian customers under long-term contracts for liquefied natural gas, that might not be so serious. But Mr Fesharaki said the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman, was "out of gas". If it used all the gas it would need to maintain oil production, it would fall short of gas for power generation and industry.

Gas injection is one of the most common techniques used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the umbrella term for methods of revitalising older oilfields. When a reservoir is first tapped into, the natural pressure exerted on the oil by the gas lying above it pushes oil into the well. As crude and some gas is drawn out of the reservoir, the remaining gas expands and the reservoir pressure drops. Eventually the oil stops flowing unless the reservoir is repressurised.

Gas injection works well for most Middle East oil reservoirs, typically increasing their recovery factor to between 60 and 80 per cent of the initial oil in place, from about half that without EOR. But for large fields, the amount of gas needed is enormous. Saudi Arabia, the region's biggest oil producer, is injecting more than 3 billion cfd of gas and could more than triple that by 2015, according to FACTS.

Iran, which uses the largest gas volumes in the region to pump its sticky crude, last year started the world's largest EOR project at its Aghajari oilfield, into which it plans to inject 3.6 billion cfd of gas. Even though the country sits on the world's second-biggest gas reserves, some engineers believe current gas development plans are "insufficient for the actual re-injection needs", said Mr Fesharaki.

"They indicate Iran's oil reservoirs may need up to 20 billion cfd of gas in the next decade." Unsurprisingly, then, Gulf oil producers are investigating other types of gas for EOR projects. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide are the main candidates. Both have been tried elsewhere with various degrees of success but they have not caught on widely because they are usually more expensive than natural gas. An exception was Mexico, which in 2000 decided to use nitrogen to revive the flagging output from its biggest oilfield Cantarell. Mexico was short of natural gas as it had neglected its development.

At first the intervention was successful but Cantarell's production peaked only four years later and has been in steep decline since 2006. Would natural gas have worked better? Possibly, petroleum engineers suggest, because it is more soluble in oil than nitrogen and therefore better at coaxing oil to flow by thinning it. Nitrogen has the advantage of being produced from air and separation plants can be built near oilfields.

Carbon dioxide, which is much more soluble in oil, has the disadvantage of usually having to be collected from an industrial source and piped to sometimes distant oilfields at considerable cost. That is not a viable proposition in most places although it could become so if tight caps on global carbon emissions are agreed to. The UAE is planning to develop nitrogen and carbon dioxide injection facilities at a major onshore oilfield.

Saudi Arabia is considering carbon dioxide to maintain output from Ghawar, the world's biggest oilfield, with a 40 million cfd pilot project set to start in 2013. Both countries hope to benefit from an elusive international agreement on carbon capture and storage that might enable them to recoup some of their costs. In the end, it may be gas shortages that turn them into carbon storage pioneers because they are short of other gas-injection options.

tcarlisle@thenational.ae

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ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

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Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
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Manchester City 3
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Company Profile
Company name: OneOrder

Started: October 2021

Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Industry: technology, logistics

Investors: A15 and self-funded 

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While you're here
Getting there

The flights

Emirates and Etihad fly to Johannesburg or Cape Town daily. Flights cost from about Dh3,325, with a flying time of 8hours and 15 minutes. From there, fly South African Airlines or Air Namibia to Namibia’s Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport, for about Dh850. Flying time is 2 hours.

The stay

Wilderness Little Kulala offers stays from £460 (Dh2,135) per person, per night. It is one of seven Wilderness Safari lodges in Namibia; www.wilderness-safaris.com.

Skeleton Coast Safaris’ four-day adventure involves joining a very small group in a private plane, flying to some of the remotest areas in the world, with each night spent at a different camp. It costs from US$8,335.30 (Dh30,611); www.skeletoncoastsafaris.com

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4. Lando Norris (McLaren) 46.466s

5.Sergio Perez (Red Bull-Honda) 52.047s

6. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 59.090s

7. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) 1:06.004

8. Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) 1:07.100

9. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri-Honda) 1:25.692

10. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin-Mercedes) 1:26.713,

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history

Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)

Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.

 

Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)

A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.

 

Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)

Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.

 

Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)

Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.

Water waste

In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.

Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.

A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.

The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.

Dust and sand storms compared

Sand storm

  • Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
  • Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
  • Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
  • Travel distance: Limited 
  • Source: Open desert areas with strong winds

Dust storm

  • Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
  • Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
  • Duration: Can linger for days
  • Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
  • Source: Can be carried from distant regions
Specs

Engine: 51.5kW electric motor

Range: 400km

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name: N2 Technology

Founded: 2018

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: Startups

Size: 14

Funding: $1.7m from HNIs

Tree of Hell

Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla

Director: Raed Zeno

Rating: 4/5

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(Grove Press)

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The Bloomberg Billionaire Index in full

1 Jeff Bezos $140 billion
2 Bill Gates $98.3 billion
3 Bernard Arnault $83.1 billion
4 Warren Buffett $83 billion
5 Amancio Ortega $67.9 billion
6 Mark Zuckerberg $67.3 billion
7 Larry Page $56.8 billion
8 Larry Ellison $56.1 billion
9 Sergey Brin $55.2 billion
10 Carlos Slim $55.2 billion

Company Profile 

Founder: Omar Onsi

Launched: 2018

Employees: 35

Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)

Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners

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SPEC SHEET

Display: 6.8" edge quad-HD  dynamic Amoled 2X, Infinity-O, 3088 x 1440, 500ppi, HDR10 , 120Hz

Processor: 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200, 8-core

Memory: 8/12GB RAM

Storage: 128/256/512GB/1TB

Platform: Android 12

Main camera: quad 12MP ultra-wide f/2.2, 108MP wide f/1.8, 10MP telephoto f/4.9, 10MP telephoto 2.4; Space Zoom up to 100x, auto HDR, expert RAW

Video: 8K@24fps, 4K@60fps, full-HD@60fps, HD@30fps, super slo-mo@960fps

Front camera: 40MP f/2.2

Battery: 5000mAh, fast wireless charging 2.0 Wireless PowerShare

Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC

I/O: USB-C

SIM: single nano, or nano and SIM, nano and nano, eSIM/nano and nano

Colours: burgundy, green, phantom black, phantom white, graphite, sky blue, red

Price: Dh4,699 for 128GB, Dh5,099 for 256GB, Dh5,499 for 512GB; 1TB unavailable in the UAE