The road ahead: in Saudi Arabia
- Aramco gears up for twin projects
- Saudi boost makes sense
- Aramco lines up Manifa contracts
- Saudis to kick start Khurais field
- Aramco turns on Nuayyim taps
- Srak fails in Kidan 6 gas bid
- Riyadh speeds up gas field work
- Aramco confirms awards at Karan
- Saudi Aramco plans gas plant at Moneefa
- Aramco boosts gas stash
- Aramco eyes gas boost at Karan field
Aramco 'revs up for gas duo'
Saudi Aramco plans to invite bids for contracts for gas facilities at the Arabiyah gas field and Shaybah oilfield in the second quarter of 2010, according to reports.
Aramco is shifting its exploration and production focus to developing gas supply to meet rapidly rising domestic demand after completing a massive crude capacity expansion this year.
The world's top oil exporter is experiencing annual gas demand growth of 7% per year as oil revenues fuel economic expansion.
Preliminary design and engineering work and project management contracts for the two projects will be awarded in September, sources at companies considering bidding told Reuters.
The early design should be completed in the second quarter, after which the bidding packages for building the facilities will be issued, they said.
Arabiyah is one of two offshore gas fields non-associated with oil that Aramco discovered in January. The other was Hasbah. It is unclear how much gas Arabiyah alone could pump, but the two together could supply 1.8 billion cubic feet per day of gas.
The Arabiyah gas development programme includes gas processing facilities, platforms and subsea pipelines that will be built at the 900,000 bpd Manifa oilfield.
The project was scheduled to come on stream in February 2014, one contractor told the news agency.
An executive at Aramco told Reuters in May that the state-run giant will build a gas plant at Manifa. The plant will process 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Arabiyah and Hasbah, he said.
Aramco has yet to finalise how it would develop the gas processing facilities. It will either build a new plant in Manifa or expand the existing facilities there, one source told Reuters.
At Shaybah, Aramco plans to build a natural gas liquids recovery plant. Work includes building a natural gas liquids splitter and debottlenecking gas-oil separation plants, sources said.
Shaybah's gas facilities will be ready by March 2014 and on stream in May 2014.
Shaybah, in the empty quarter, is the last of three oilfield projects due to come on line this year that conclude Saudi crude expansion plans to take total production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day.
The expansion of Shaybah would take capacity at the field to 750,000 bpd. Aramco uses gas from Shaybah for reinjection to maintain reservoir pressure.
Aramco plans to raise its non-associated gas processing capacity to 9 Bcfd by 2015 from 6.2 Bcfd currently to meet soaring demand for industrial use in the kingdom.