Safaniya Oil Field

The Safaniya Oil Field is a Saudi offshore oil field that is located within the waters of the Arabian Gulf, along the east coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is the world’s biggest offshore oil field and contains a proved reserve of 34.03 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

It is three km away from the coast and about 225 km away from Dhahran, the headquarters of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), which is the biggest integrated company of oil and gas.

The Safaniya Oil Field was discovered after about thirteen years since the first oil flowed in the Kingdom and in conjunction with the commencement of production in the Ghawar Oil Field in 1951. The Ghawar field is the world’s biggest onshore oil field and is located within the concession area of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), which is responsible for all drilling, production, and development works in the field.

Drilling operations in the waters of the Arabian Gulf took about two years until oil was found in the exploratory well of Safaniya. During the first ten years after it was discovered, its production did not exceed 150,000 barrels per day. Throughout about seventy years since oil extraction, its production capacity increased to 1.5 million oil barrels per day in 2020.

The Safaniya Oil Field, which measures fifty km long and fifteen km wide, is surrounded by several Saudi offshore oil fields located in the Arabian Gulf waters, including the Zuluf Oil Field to the north, the Marjan Oil Field to the northeast, which is somewhat close to Safaniya, the Manifa Oil Field to the south, and the Karan Field to the southeast.