Reuters reported that Saudi Aramco’s gas processing plant at Khursaniyah was expected to start partial operations in a few weeks.
2 contracting sources said that delays in construction at the plant delayed the whole 500,000 barrels per day Khursaniyah oilfield development project, one of the largest in Saudi expansion plans as the kingdom boosted crude production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day. Khursaniyah oilfield started output in September 2008, even though the gas plant was incomplete. The whole project was initially scheduled to start in December 2007. A shortage in labor and materials led to the delay at the gas plant.
The plant has capacity to process around 1 billion cubic feet per day of sour gas from the Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah fields. It has 3 trains each with a capacity of 600 million cubic feet per day and would also process gas from the Karan offshore field.
One contractor said that “Pre commissioning of Train 1 will be completed within a week’s time. Trains 2 and 3 will be ready for start up by the end of February. The facility would have the capacity to produce 560 million cubic feet per day of sales gas and 280,000 barrels per day of ethane and natural gas liquids.
Aramco said that about 450 million of gas from the Phase I of the Karan gas project is expected to come online by mid 2011. The field would eventually have capacity to pump 1.8 billion cubic feed per day of gas daily. In 2005, Aramco awarded France’s Technip and US Bechtel the contract to build the plant at the 500,000 barrels per day Khursaniyah oilfield. Demand for gas in the kingdom for power and industry is soaring due to an economic boom fuelled by the oil price rally of 2002 to 2008.
As most Saudi gas is produced in association with oil, volumes fluctuate with oil production. Saudi oil output was at lowest in more than 6 years earlier in 2009 as the kingdom and OPEC curbed output to match rapidly falling demand. This has left gas supply in the kingdom tight.
