Shaybah
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Shaybah is about 40 km from the northern edge of the Rub' Al-Khali/Empty Quarter desert and is a major crude oil producing site in Saudi Arabia. It is located about 10 km south of the border to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which is a straight line drawn in the desert. It is 40 km south of the eastern part of Liwa Oasis of Abu Dhabi.
Shaybah was developed for the purposes of exploiting the Shaybah oilfield. It was established by Saudi Aramco during the 1990’s and prior to this only the rough tracks used by early exploration teams existed in this isolated desert region. All materials for the establishment and construction of Shaybah were transported the 800 kilometres from Dhahran to Shaybah by road.
Shaybah has housing facilities for more than 700 people, administrative offices, an air-strip, a fire station, recreation areas, maintenance and support workshops, and power stations for generation and distribution. There is a 650-kilometer fibre optic cable linking Shaybah to the main radio system at Abqaiq.
When established the Shaybah oilfield had estimated reserves of over 14 billion barrels (2,200,000,000 m³) of crude oil and 25 trillion cubic feet (710 km³) of gas. Saudi Aramco brought the project on-stream in 1998. The crude is Arabian extra light, a high quality crude grade with a specific gravity of 42 degrees api and a sulphur content of less than 0.7 percent. The oil reservoir is found at a depth of 1,494 meters, and is itself 122 meters thick. The oil pipeline from the Shaybah field to Abqaiq is 638 kilometres long, while the pipelines within the field itself total 735 kilometres in length.
Shaybah's weather is extreme, with the temperature dropping to 10 degrees Celsius on winter nights, rising to 60 degrees Celsius in the summer daytime. Dust storms are a regular occurrence.
Source: http://www.saudiembassy.net/1999News/News/EneDetail.asp?cIndex=1098
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- Shaybah as seen from space (zoomable) The cluster on the left is the Saudi Aramco town of Shaybah, and on the right is the Shaybah Gas Oil Separation Plant-2. Zoom out for a perspective of the remoteness of Shaybah.
