Saudi Arabia and oil major Royal Dutch Shell are studying the development of the Kidan gas field, the al-Hayat newspaper reported Aramco's chief executive as saying on Tuesday.

The field is in the vast desert in Saudi Arabia's southeast, known as the empty quarter. Kidan is near the 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) Shaybah oilfield, and an exploration well has already been drilled by a Shell-Aramco joint venture to explore for gas in the region, Khalid al-Falih told the newspaper.

"The drilling outcome was promising for Shell and Aramco," the newspaper reported him as saying. "Production from wells we drilled in Kidan is high and we still have to draw up a plan to develop it economically."

The Shell-Aramco joint venture is the South Rub al-Khali Co (Srak). Five years of gas exploration by international oil companies including Shell in partnership with Aramco in the region have failed to find the gas the kingdom needs to meet future demand.

The kingdom is short of gas to meet rapidly rising demand from power plants and industry. Energy consumption has risen in the world's top oil exporter in recent years as record oil revenues fueled an economic boom.

In a rare opening for international firms, Aramco set up four consortia to drill for gas in the region in 2003-2004.

The activity of other consortia in the region was also promising, Falih said. Luksar, a joint venture between Russia's LUKOIL and Aramco, had made two discoveries from the seven wells it had drilled, he told the newspaper.

Oil industry sources have said it was unlikely either Luksar discovery would be profitable at the low price Aramco pays for gas produced in the kingdom.

Aramco had discovered tight gas reservoirs near the concession held by China's Sinopec Group and the concession held by Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol Falih says.

He says the concessions holders had some "promising ideas" but gave no further details.