The first gas from Karan - the company's first offshore non-associated gas field project - started flowing earlier this month and is being transported by subsea pipeline to the onshore Khursaniyah Gas Plant. The first-phase start-up of Karan marks a significant milestone in the company's gas expansion program, underlining its role as a reliable supplier of energy and its ability to bring giant projects online, both critical to meeting the energy needs of the Kingdom. Discovered in April 2006, Karan is the first non-associated gas field in Saudi territorial waters in the Arabian Gulf, 160 kilometers north of the company's headquarters in Dhahran. Offshore facilities at Karan consist of five production platform complexes connected to a main tie-in platform, installed with associated electrical power, communication and state-of-the-art remote monitoring and control facilities for safe and reliable operations from onshore. A 110-kilometer subsea pipeline is transporting Karan gas to onshore processing facilities at the Khursaniyah Gas Plant. The gas is processed through a number of trains that include facilities for gas sweetening, acid-gas enrichment, gas dehydration and supplementary propane refrigeration. The onshore facilities also include a cogeneration plant, a sulfur recovery unit with storage tank, substations and a transmission pipeline linked to the Kingdom's Master Gas System (MGS). --More
