Saudi Arabia has discovered natural gas in the Shaybah oilfield in the eastern  part of The kingdom.

The find is significant in that it lies in the area where the kingdom has just awarded gas exploration and production contracts to foreign oil companies.
Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency SPA that the discovery was made from a well that flowed an average 20,000m cu ft per day of gas and 650 bpd of condensate.
Saudi Aramco had discovered the gas at a depth of 7,815 feet in the field in the country’s east, Naimi said.
The importance of this find lies in its being in new zones, where non-associated gas had not been discovered before, Naimi said.
The well is about 600 km southeast of Dhahran and 800 km southeast of Riyadh.
“The new discovery added a vital and important dimension to al-Shaybah field, that produces an average of 500,000 bpd of very light Arabian oil,” Naimi said.
The discovery comes close towhen Saudi Arabia signed four separate upstream gas agreements with Russia’s Lukoil, China’s Sinopec and a partnership of Italy’s Eni and Spain’s Repsol YPF for blocks in the northern sector of the Empty Quarter, where Shaybah is located. A partnership of Shell, Total and Saudi Aramco will operate in the southern sector of Shaybah.
Some oil experts had expressed doubts that the companies would find non-associated gas in the area.
Non-associated gas makes up only 40 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s total reserves of 231 Tcf.