Steve Pollitt, business development director of sulphur technology at global giant WorleyParsons on the challenges and local opportunities presented by sour oil and gas field projects
The Middle East’s thirst for cleaner power generation, a diversified petrochemical production industry, and the sheer scale of energy demand expected in the coming decades have seen a number of creative solutions to counteract the current gas situation and a shift to complex sour-gas projects is well under way.
In view to a long-term solution for the problem of falling gas supplies, the GCC countries have started to invest heavily into the gas sector. The most noteworthy change in this context is that many of them have turned to the development of sour-gas projects that were previously discouraged on the grounds of high production and also processing costs.
As a result, a large amount of the upcoming projects in the oil and gas production are now sour-gas related.
Regional Snapshot
Abu Dhabi is undertaking a massive project to capitalise on its huge reserves of sour gas and has put great stock into sticking by its commitment to completing the development of the Shah Field by 2015.
The Shah Gas scheme is a c. USD $10-12 billion mega-project that is 60% owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and 40% Occidental. Once developed, it will produce 1 bcf/d of sour raw gas. However, the scale and technical challenges of the project remain substantial.
Further major fields in the UAE, which are rich in sour-gas, include the onshore Bab-Thammam and the offshore Hail field, which are expected to produce up to 0.5 bcf/d of gas.
Saudi Arabia in turn has initiated several projects to tap into its more than 10 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of non-associated gas. As the first non-associated gas field to be developed by Saudi Aramco, the company has awarded all four contract packages for the development of the offshore Karan gas field, which include the building of a sub-sea pipeline to transport the field’s sour-gas to the onshore Khursaniya facility for treatment.
Other GCC countries are equally turning their attention to sour gas developments. The Barzan gas development in Qatar for example, is part of the existing gas development scheme for the North Field and one of the country’s answers to satisfying its growing gas feedstock requirements for its domestic power and water sectors.
The Barzan Project will be located in Ras Laffan Industrial City and will be operated by RasGas Company Limited to produce and will supply sales gas to power stations and industries in Qatar, ethane to the petrochemicals industry in Qatar, and associated liquid hydrocarbons for sale into local and international markets. The Barzan Project is expected to supply 1.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas, with first gas flow planned for 2014.
Oman has equally started to invest into challenging gas developments and plans to bring eleven fields on stream over the coming five years. This includes the Khazzan-Makarem field and deep gas fields in the south of the country, which contain very sour gas.
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Contractor Focus
WorleyParsons’ involvement in sulphur recovery plants began in 1951 when a chemical company in Long Beach, California, required expansion of its sulphur recovery facilities as well as improvements in operating performance and reliability.
This project required extensive testing and fundamental research and development work by a WorleyParsons task force. The effort was highly successful, and as a result, the extensively modified sulphur plant became a showcase for WorleyParsons, leading toward a number of new projects in rapid succession by various clients.
“The major challenge is in dealing with very large volumes of sour gas which may contain relatively low levels of sulphur. WorleyParsons has wide experience in the design of gas processing and sulphur removal plant accumulated in over 60 years,” explains Steve Pollitt, business development director of Sulphur Technology at WorleyParsons.
“For over half a century, WorleyParsons has designed over 600 sulphur recovery units worldwide with a significant number of these facilities located in the Middle East. The combined tonnage of sulphur produced by WorleyParsons’ designed plants in the Middle East totals more than 30,000 tpd and the plants are located in all major oil and gas producing areas of the region,” reveals Pollitt.
“Our plants are able to meet the increasingly tight environmental standards while maintaining our reputation for robust design and optimum capital cost.”
From the first plant designed for IMEG in the 1960’s, WorleyParsons has been engaged in the Middle East providing solutions to acid gas processing and sulphur removal issues, implementing licensed technologies and drawing upon its deep sulphur expertise and long track record.
“Our pedigree in the sour sector means we are able to offer local customers a full suite of technologies that can be engineered to meet customer requirements and we are able to meet the most stringent regulations for sulphur recovery and flue gas emissions,” he adds.
Pollitt says the current energy outlook in the region is necessitating a renewed Middle Eastern focus on developing sour reserves.
“New gas fields are becoming increasingly sour and difficult to process but must now be exploited to meet the increasing world energy demands. Our specific experience of highly sour gas covers a number of regions, notably the Middle East and Kazakhstan where we have designed some of the biggest sulphur units ever built.”
WorleyParsons is curently working in all the countries of the Middle East on a range of sour oil and gas projects. Some of its recent gas processing and sulpur removal projects have been performed for Gasco (Habshan and Ruwais), KNPC, Equate, Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum and Petroleum Development Oman.
“Our work in sour oil and gas processing covers all the world’s major hydrocarbon producing regions but our major activities are still in the Middle East. We have significant projects in Russia, Kazakhstan, USA, Europe and India as well, but we are confident the Middle East will remain a major part of our business into the forseeable future,” Pollitt concludes.
