Saudi Aramco has started commissioning the first train of an expanded gas processing facility for Karan, its first non-associated offshore gas field, three industry sources said this week. Aramco aimed to produce 400 mcfd of gas to meet peak summer demand when Karan first started production last year. It plans to raise production to 1.5 billion cfd by June 2012, with full production of 1.8 bcfd seen in April 2013. The ramp up of Karan should help Saudi Arabia burn less crude in its power plants this summer. Gas from the offshore field will be processed at the Khursaniyah plant through three new production lines, known as trains, each with a capacity of 600 million cubic feet per day (mcfd). "They introduced gas to train one, it is already under commissioning," an industry source said. Construction work for the four parts of the project is almost complete, sources said. Work includes offshore platforms, a 47-km pipeline, a power plant, together with facilities for gas drying and sulfur removal.
