Improving People’s Lives: Minimizing Impact
Authors: Meehan Nathan 
Published: January 2017

President's column

Last December I had the pleasure of returning to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and touring the giant Manifa oil field. Manifa produces a heavy, sour crude oil from six, long (up to 40 km), stacked reservoirs in shallow water (Arukhe 2014). The shallow waters have abundant sea grasses and corals and are teeming with marine life. Shrimping and fishing are important parts of the local economy. The development of the Manifa field is a fascinating story showing how creative solutions can minimize impact on the environment.

Manifa was discovered by Saudi Aramco in 1957. The discovery well targeted both the shallower formations productive in the large Safaniya coastal field and the deeper Arab formations so productive onshore. Neither zone was productive; however, the discovery found excellent productive layers in between, including three that were only produced in small volumes onshore and three that had never before proved productive. The heavy, sour crude was similar to Khursaniyah, one of the three major types of crude present in large quantities in the Kingdom. Demand was less for this crude than for Safaniya and Arab crudes but the market for heavy sour crudes was improving (Aramco World 1963). The first development was in 1962, and the field was brought on stream in 1964. The field produced for 20 years before being mothballed in 1985 because of low demand (Aldossary 2015).

Manifa’s history can be contrasted with that of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. While specific reserve estimates for Manifa are not public information, both fields are very large. The Prudhoe Bay field was discovered in 1968 and did not begin production until 1977. Prudhoe production peaked at about 1.5 million BOPD in 1989. Prudhoe Bay crude averages 27.6 °API and had a significant domestic market to serve. Manifa crude is 26–31 °API and has from 2.8% to 3.7% sulfur content (Croft and Patzek 2009), with less of a market at the time. It is fairly astonishing that roughly comparable fields would go down such radically different paths.

Manifa would remain mothballed until 2006. Saudi Aramco redeveloped the field consistent with a very long life production time horizon for its large reservoirs (Saudi Aramco 2016). But the old way of approaching shallow offshore fields would not be acceptable.

The use of jackup rigs in these shallow waters would have required excessive dredging, and the size of the reservoir eliminated the possibility of effective development from the shore. A new approach to development would be needed. A creative plan to develop man-made islands connected by a causeway would allow conventional onshore rigs to be used to develop this offshore field.

A long causeway was considered, but early designs would have decreased water circulation vital to distributing nutrients and oxygen vital to marine life. With more than 4 million man-hours of work in the design phase, a solution was developed to build 27 man-made islands connected by 41 km of causeways. To ensure needed water circulation, the causeway does not go all the way across the bay and 14 bridges were built into the causeway to further improve circulation (Aldossary 2015). Production commenced in 2012 ahead of schedule and under budget in a development that earned a UNESCO Environmental Responsibility Award nomination.

It is an impressive development of which Saudi Aramco is rightly proud, with eventual production capacity of 900,000 BOPD or more. As our helicopter approached the massive processing facility, I looked at the three large flare stacks. There was nothing being flared. Was the field shut in? No, the design and normal operations of the field use all of the produced gas and creative operations practices mean that almost no gas is flared. Excess electricity produced by the facilities goes into the power grid.