Lack of Water May Slow Down Saudi Arabian Shale Projects

Saudi Arabia may need another ten years to get to shale gas output levels comparable to the US due to lack of sufficient water supply, Bloomberg reported state oil company officials as saying.

Finding the necessary amount of water in the regions where Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is exploring for shale gas will be difficult, Bloomberg said citing Amin Nasser, senior vice president of the company.

Saudi Arabia may hold as much as 645 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas, the world’s fifth-largest deposits, behind China, the U.S., Argentina and Mexico, according to estimates by Baker Hughes Inc. 

“The infrastructure cost will go down with time,” he said March 10 at an oil and gas conference in Manama, Bahrain. “But water is going to remain a challenge.”