JEDDAH, 17 March 2005 — State-owned Saudi Aramco signed contracts yesterday with international engineering and construction firms to develop its Khursaniyah oil and gas project and Hawiyah NGL program, the company said in a statement.
Aramco said the Khursaniyah project will add 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Saudi Arabia’s production capacity by the end of 2007. The Hawiyah NGL recovery program will produce an additional 310,000 barrels of ethane and NGL products by 2008, through the Hawiyah plant and an expansion of the Juaymah gas fractionation plant near Ras Tanura, it added.
Aramco said Italy’s Snamprogetti was selected for execution of the Khursaniyah producing facilities, including building a central gas-oil separation plant and wet crude handling facilities, gas gathering compression facilities and a cogeneration plant.
A consortium of Bechtel Overseas of London and Technip was selected to construct two trains of gas conditioning and ethane and NGL recovery at the Khursaniyah gas plant with a total capacity of 1 billion standard cubic feet per day.
Saudi Aramco President and Chief Executive Officer Abdallah S. Jum’ah congratulated the winning firms and the project teams, and emphasized that these contracts will help Saudi Aramco deliver on its promise to continue securing energy for the nation and for the world. “The oil facilities will reinforce the company’s international role in responding reliably to future oil market demand, while the gas program demonstrates Saudi Aramco’s commitment to continue playing its part in the Kingdom’s efforts to further grow and diversify the economy,” Jum’ah said.
Saudi Aramco also awarded five contracts to build the world’s largest NGL processing plant at Hawiyah to recover ethane and NGL from approximately 4 billion standard cubic feet per day of sales gas.
Japan’s JGC Corp. was awarded the contract for the Hawiyah NGL and related facilities. Snamprogetti will carry out the work related to gas treating and compression facilities.
Contracts for communication, plant infrastructure facilities and temporary camp and catering services were signed with local contractors: General Telecom & Engineering (GTE), Modern Arab Construction (MAC) and National Engineering Services and Marketing Agency (NESMA).
Under a separate contract, Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas will expand the Ju’aymah Gas Fractionation Plant as part of the Hawiyah NGL Recovery Program. The contract calls for construction of a fourth train to fractionate 270,000 b/d of ethane and NGL and 100,000 b/d of propane and NGL.
These contracts have placed particular emphasis on maximizing Saudi participation in the engineering and construction phases of the program. Saudi employment requirements have been included as part of the project requirements, in addition to using Kingdom-based engineering firms in the design phase. Saudi Aramco has been honing its relationships with engineering and construction firms around the world, and the contracts reflect the growing sophistication of those partnerships. Over the years, Saudi Aramco has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to establishing meaningful relationships with international contractors, manufacturers and suppliers.
“The stage is now set for a new and lucrative business relationship between Saudi Aramco and contractors,” said Saad F. Al-Dosari, Saudi Aramco’s acting executive director of Project Management. Saudi Aramco gave no value for any of the contracts.
