Russia’s No.2 oil producer Lukoil plans to start natural gas production in Saudi Arabia next year, the company’s vice president Leonid Fedun said on Friday.

“We made a discovery of 400 billion cubic metres… This would be large enough and the first gas-producing project in Saudi Arabia,” he said during a conference call.

Lukoil secured a deal to find and pump gas in Saudi Arabia from the project known as Block A last decade.

The project is small by the standards of Saudi Arabia’s immense hydrocarbon reserves, but it creates a potentially useful new link between producer cartel OPEC’s leading member and Russia, the world’s number one oil exporter.

Source: Reuters & Rigzone