Oil was discovered with Shaybah Well No. 1 in 1967, and 30 vertical field delineation wells had been drilled by 1974. However, due to the very large number of wells required to achieve a minimum capacity of 250,000 bd of commercial production, the field was not developed at that time. Starting in 1993 with the advent of extended reach horizontal wells and geo-steering in Saudi Aramco, a detailed evaluation of the productivity of horizontal wells was carried out in Shaybah field. The program confirmed that average well productivities would be increased from 500 bd in vertical wells to over 5000 bd in horizontal wells, without incurring gas or water coning. The improvement in well productivities allowed a change in project scope from 500 oil wells to deliver 250,000 bd of capacity to 140 oil and associated gas injection wells to deliver 550,000 bd of capacity. This change reduced the budgeted capital cost from $6.0 billion to $3.3 billion allowing the
Saudi Aramco management in 1995 to approve the Shaybah field development ahead of other projects in Ghawar. == Telecommunications ==