Steamflood pilot in Saudi neutral zone ‘quite promising’: Chevron

Chevron hopes to increase production of heavy crude oil from Saudi
Arabia’s neutral zone through the use of steamflood technology and results
from an initial pilot so far are quite promising, Chevron vice chairman Peter
Robertson said Tuesday.

“We have a small pilot going in the neutral zone and soon we will have a
bigger pilot…so far it looks like it is working and we hope to be able to
produce a lot more heavy oil,” he told Platts on the sidelines of the Oil and
Money conference. “So far it looks quite promising.”

Robertson put current production in the neutral zone at 260,000 b/d but
he declined to predict how much extra crude could be extracted by using steam
flooding but he said the rate of increase would be similar to those achieved
in California and in Indonesia although the Middle Eastern terrain was
different.

Chevron’s concession in the neutral zone is due to expire in 2009 and the
company is in talks with Saudi Arabia on its plans to expand capacity from the
Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ), which is shared between Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait.

Platts