Reuters reported that Canada's SNC Lavalin Group Inc and US firm KBR lead the race for deals for early design and engineering at 2 gas projects in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi based contractors said that SNC Lavalin is the lowest bidder on both projects but Aramco is unlikely to award both deals to the same company. They said that KBR which only submitted bids for the bigger Shaybah gas project is expected to win that deal.
Ms Heather Browne director of Corporate Communications at KBR confirmed that the major engineering and construction firm was only bidding for Shaybah.
An executive at Aramco told Reuters in May that the state run firm would build another gas plant at Moneefa. That plant would process 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas from Arabiyah and Hasbah.
He said that Arabiyah is one of 2 offshore gas fields none associated with oil that Aramco discovered in January. The other was Hasbah. It is unclear how much gas Arabiyah alone could pump but the 2 together could supply 1.8 billion cubic feet per day of gas.
The Moneefa program is split into 4 projects that include gas processing facilities, 2 offshore gas platforms one tie in platform to handle around 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas, subsea power and communication links and pipelines.
Aramco has yet to finalize how it would develop the gas processing facilities. It will either build a new plant at Moneefa or Jubail or expand existing facilities at Moneefa and Berri. If Aramco decided to build a grass root plant at Moneefa or Jubail the plant will produce around 750 million cubic feet per day of sales gas and 1700 tonnes per day of sulphur through 2 gas processing trains.
At Shaybah, the 3 main projects cover a new natural gas liquids recovery facility. The plant would strip out ethane, propane and natural gas liquids while producing around 1,400 million cubic feet per day of gas for re injection in the oilfield. Work also includes de bottlenecking gas oil separation plants at Shaybah and the installation of facilities at the Berri gas plant to split out NGLs from the recovery facility.
Aramco said that the 3 other projects under the Shaybah program would be carried out by a local design firm. They cover the installation of a new pipeline from the Shaybah NGL recovery facility to Juaymah gas plant, site preparation for the NGL recovery facility and the expansion of residential and industrial complex at Shaybah.
Industry sources said that the projects are at the Moneefa and Shaybah oilfields and are planned to meet rising domestic demand for gas and feed stocks for petrochemical plants. The world's largest oil exporter is rapidly increasing petrochemical capacity as part of plans to diversify its economy.
(Sourced from Reuters)
