Saudi Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has inaugurated Saudi Aramco's Haradh Natural Gas and Oil Development Project, the third giant energy scheme built in the kingdom in the past six years.
The mega-project consists of a giant gas plant capable of delivering 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per day of sales gas to Saudi Arabia's Master Gas System, and gas oil separation plant (GOSP) capable of stabilizing 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Arabian Light crude oil. The GOSP associated with the Haradh Natural Gas and Oil Development Project - called GOSP-2 - also includes a 130 million standard cubic foot associated gas gathering facility.
In addition to the sales gas, Haradh Gas Plant has is designed to deliver 170,000 barrels per day (bpd) of high-value condensates to Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq processing facility, and can produce 90 metric tons of sulfur per day for export.
Saudi Aramco's president and CEO Abdullah S. Jumah said Haradh was the Kingdom’s second plant built specifically to process gas from reserves not associated with oil production.
"This expansion allows, among other things, for the allocation of gas to several major petrochemical projects and massive industrial complexes that will be accomplished during the coming five years, with investments totaling 75 billion riyals ($26 billion)," he said.
"The project management and operation team of this mammoth project is almost entirely Saudi," Jum'ah added, "with a percentage of more than 98 percent Saudization. The pre-commissioning period proved that the Saudis selected for the work were all up to the responsibility assigned to them."
Current gas production in Saud Arabia is around six billion cubic feet per day (cfpd) but there are plans to boost it to about 10 billion (cfpd) by 2010. — (menareport.com)
© 2004 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
