DAMMAM— Saudi Aramco is building facilities to tap shale gas in the Eastern Province, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser told reporters.

Aramco is seeking unconventional gas at the South Ghawar and Jafurah deposits in eastern Saudi Arabia, he said.

Plans include a plant to desalinate seawater that Aramco can then inject underground to frack for gas. It plans, for example, to build a reverse-osmosis desalination plant to treat Gulf seawater for injection into the Jafurah basin to dislodge shale gas.

Jafurah is located between Ghawar, the world’s largest oil field, and the Gulf, near the hub of the Saudi energy industry.

The water-treatment facility is in the planning and design phase and could be in operation in four to five years, Mohammed Al Qahtani, Aramco’s senior vice president for upstream, told reporters in Dammam.

Aramco plans to double its total gas production to 23 billion cubic feet a day over the coming decade, Nasser has said.

He sketched out the Kingdom’s ambitions on April 25 at a conference in Riyadh.

“For the first time ever, we will be exporting gas either by pipeline or as LNG” -- or liquefied natural gas, Nasser said. “For gas, we will be a major player.” — Agencies