Saudi Aramco recently demonstrated its ability to rise to the challenge of meeting the Kingdom's future demand for gas by awarding contracts for development of the offshore Karan gas field and onshore processing facilities in quick succession. The latest contract for Karan was awarded to J. Ray McDermott, S.A., a subsidiary of McDermott International Inc., a US oil and gas services company, to develop and construct platforms and a subsea pipeline at the offshore gas field. Saudi Aramco said the offshore work awarded to J. Ray McDermott is in addition to three other contracts for onshore projects awarded earlier: to Korea's Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. for gas facilities, the UK's Petrofac for utilities and co-generation, and Korea's GS Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. for sulfur recovery. The Karan project team negotiated agreements with contractors to reflect current market conditions, and also for delivery to meet its production target. The technical challenge for contractors is to deliver plants and equipment while gas drilling is going on nearby. “The signing of these contracts reflects the keenness of our company to meet the market needs of the local industry and support the national economy,” said Majed Y. Al-Mugla, executive director of project management. Karan is the first non-associated offshore gas field project to be developed by the company in the Kingdom. The project, about 160 kilometers north of Dhahran, will produce 1.8 billion standard cubic feet per day of Karan Khuff gas when completed, and will include facilities to transport gas from the field via a 110-kilometer subsea pipeline to onshore processing facilities at the Khursaniya Gas Plant. The offshore facilities at Karan consist of four wellhead topside platforms with auxiliary facilities connected to a main tie-in platform that will feed the sour gas to the subsea pipeline. Gas will be processed through three trains, each with a capacity of 600 million scfd at the Khursaniya Gas Plant. The trains will include facilities for gas sweetening, acid gas enrichment, gas dehydration, and supplementary propane refrigeration. In addition, the facilities will include a cogeneration plant with boiler, sulfur recovery unit with storage tank, substations and a transmission pipeline linked to the Kingdom's Master Gas System. Five teams including contractors and company employees, located in the United Arab Emirates, Korea and in-Kingdom, are working on the project to achieve delivery of the first phase of production, which will produce 400 million scfd by early 2011.
