Saudi Aramco May Award $6.9 Billion Worth Gas Development Projects

Published: 02-Sep-2009

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) may award two contracts to implement gas projects worth around $6.9 billion to meet soaring gas demand in the country, the Saudi Gazette reported. The scope work of the two contracts is to conduct front-end engineering design (FEED), services and manage construction of the two projects comprising of Manifa gas development program and the Shaybah natural gas liquids (NGL) program.

“The projects are aimed at increasing gas output, they are huge,” an official at one of the companies bidding for the contracts said.

On August 22, 2009, Fluor Corporation, Foster Wheeler Limited., SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. and Technip S.A. Have submitted their bids for the two projects.

The Manifa gas development program comprises of construction of new onshore facilities with capacity to produce 750 million cubic feet a day of sales gas and 1,700 tons a day of sulfur or, under a second scenario, the expansion and upgrade of existing gas processing facilities. The facilities will process non-associated gas obtained from the offshore Arabiya gas field discovered in 2008.

The Shaybah NGL program comprises of installation of an NGL recovery facility, the debottlenecking of existing gas-oil separation facilities and the installation of facilities at the Berri gas plant to handle the NGLs from the recovery facility.

Saudi Aramco is likely to invite tenders for the main engineering, procurement and construction, or EPC, contracts for construction of the facilities on both projects around mid-2010 once FEED services are completed. The facilities are set to be operational in 2014.

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