RIYADH, 25 May 2003 — Haradh Gas Plant, the second multibillion-dollar project for non-associated gas in Saudi Arabia, has started experimental production and is almost ready to come on-stream, Saudi Aramco said yesterday.
“Partial production of Haradh Gas Plant started on April 23, as the first processing unit of the plant began operation,” Nasser Al-Nafisi, head of Saudi Aramco public relations, said in a statement.
The plant will be on stream with full capacity at the end of July, five months ahead of schedule, Nafisi added.
The project, under way 280 km (175 miles) southwest of Dhahran, is part of Aramco’s long-term program of non-associated gas exploration and development.
It will increase gas supplies by 1.5 billion cubic feet (42.5 million cubic meters) per day to the Kingdom’s Master Gas System (MGS), bringing the company’s combined gas production to about seven billion cubic feet (198.2 million cubic meters).
The plant is designed to process 1.6 billion cubic feet (45.3 million cubic meters) of non-associated feed gas daily, increasing the total amount of feed gas to be processed by the MGS to about nine billion cubic feet (254.8 million cubic meters).
The project will recover 145,000 barrels per day (bpd) of high quality condensates, which will be transported to Abqaiq plants for treatment via a 230-km (144-mile) pipeline.
Haradh is a twin of the Hawiyah Gas Plant, which was commissioned in 2002 as Saudi Arabia’s first non-associated gas plant, adding 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas to the MGS and boosting gas supplies by more than 30 percent.
The two plants are located in Ghawar, the largest oilfield in the world, and are expected to almost double the Kingdom’s gas production.
Hawiyah also produces 160,000 barrels of hydrocarbon condensates and 1,000 metric tons of sulfur each day.
The project transported gas by pipeline for the first time to the Riyadh area to fuel three electric power plants, which previously consumed crude oil.
Resorting to gas-fired systems has freed up a considerable amount of crude for export.
Gas-fired plants are also more environmentally friendly.
Gas production is due to reach around 10 billion cubic feet (283.1 million cubic meters) per day by 2010.
The MGS network, set up some 25 years ago, extends from the Gulf to the Red Sea, and from the north to the south of the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia’s proven natural gas reserves grew in the past decade to 224 trillion cubic feet (6.34 trillion cubic meters), the fourth largest in the world, about 85 trillion (2.41 trillion cubic meters) of which is non-associated gas.
Aramco officials say that initial assessments indicate that vast reserves remain to be discovered in many parts of the Kingdom. The assessments suggest that Saudi Arabia holds one of the largest and most accessible gas reserves in the world.
Saudi Arabia is currently the world’s leading oil producer and exporter with production well above nine million barrels a day, but it will be slashed to 8.256 million barrels on June 1.
The Kingdom signed in June 2001 preliminary agreements with eight international oil companies for three mega gas projects worth some $25 billion in investments.
Final agreements on the projects have been delayed several times, but the Kingdom now expects to sign deals on two of the three projects soon.
The Kingdom’s gas industry employs about 35,000 workers in direct jobs in gas production, processing, manufacturing and marketing operations.
