Schaiba (oil field)

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Schaiba ( Arabic حقل شيبة النفطي, DMG Ḥaql Šaiba an-nafṭī ), also Shaybah , is an oil field in Saudi Arabia and is located in the eastern part of the Rub al-Kali desert , not far from the border with the United Arab Emirates . It is operated by the state-owned company Saudi Aramco .

The weather is extreme: in winter the temperature drops to 0 ° C at night, in summer it can reach 56 ° C during the day. Rain falls very little.

Oil was discovered in 1968 and 50 test wells had been completed by 1974. The deposit was estimated at 14 billion barrels of oil. From 1995–98, Saudi Aramco invested $ 2.5 billion in oil production. In 1996 alone, 90,000 tons of material were brought to Shaybah from the next location, Dharan. Two thirds of the route could be covered with normal trucks, the rest was taken over by desert trucks that were specially made for Saudi Aramco and can drive over the sand dunes. On October 3, 1999, the complex was opened by Crown Prince Abdullah .

In addition to the oil production, a settlement (also called Schaiba ) for 1000 people, a street, a small airport and a pipeline was built.

Attack on the oil field

On August 17, 2019, the Schaiba oil field was attacked by drones . According to Saudi sources, the fire that started caused only minor damage, there were no injuries and there was no loss of production. The Yemeni Houthis , who are being fought by the Saudis in the Yemen war, claimed responsibility for the attack with allegedly 10 drones . It has been speculated that the attack was intended as a warning to the United Arab Emirates, which were also involved in the Yemen war. The oil field is over 1000 km from Yemen.

The Houthi rebels had already assumed responsibility for drone attacks on two pumping stations on the Saudi east-west pipeline and on the port of Yanbu on May 14, 2019. The rebels announced further and more serious actions if Saudi aggression continues in Yemen.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070314105032/http://www.saudiembassy.net/1999News/News/EneDetail.asp?cIndex=1098 , accessed on September 18, 2019
  2. ↑ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2019/08/drone-attack-yemen-rebels-sparks-fire-saudi-oil-field-190817132916661.html , accessed on September 18, 2019