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Sources in Saudi Arabia have said that Saudi Aramco’s delayed gas processing plant being built at Khursaniyah is expected to come on stream in the next few weeks.
Reuters reported that the facility, which will have a capacity to process around 1 billion cubi feet per day (cfd) of sour gas when fully operational, will start partial operations shortly.
“Pre-commissioning of Train 1 will be completed within a weeks time… Trains 2 and 3 will be ready for start-up by the end of February,” a contractor is quoted by Reuters as saying.
The facility will take sour gas from Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah oilfields as well as the Karan offshore field.
The three trains each have a capacity of 600 million cfd and will produce sales gas as well as ethane and natural gas liquids.
Technip and Bechtel were awarded the contracts to build the gas processing facility in 2005.
Aramco recently announced that construction work on the Karan gas field has started and early milestones were already being met with a view to extracting the first gas in mid-2011.
Saudi Arabia is ramping up production of natural gas as it strives to service booming domestic demand.