Offshore projects continue to grow in size throughout the region. This Month, OGME profiles the five biggest offshore projects in the Gulf and the players that are making them happen
The oil and gas industry is looking further and deeper offshore, as the projects continue to expand in size and capital spending, Oil&Gas Middle East takes a look at the five largest ongoing projects this year.
The primary driving forces behind our project power list are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, where energy and infrastructure projects on a world-leading scale continue to forge ahead.
Other Gulf players such as Kuwait and Bahrain are also developing their offshore capabilities but their projects are being dwarfed by Saudi, Qatari and Emirati dreams.
At the top of our list is, of course, Qatar. Despite having entered the hydrocarbon sector later than its regional rivals, Qatar has emerged as the world’s leading gas giant, and that’s mostly due to its massive offshore reserves.
As the country looks to diversify its economy and become a global leader in other sectors, it will simultaneously need to increase its gas production capacity in order to feed its foreign markets while meeting demand at home.
Qatar’s ambitions have been matched by Saudi Arabia’s and of course, the UAE’s. The Jubail industrial city and the Al Wasit Gas programme have allowed the Kingdom to bolster its offshore activity even further.
As for Abu Dhabi, well, it’s become clear that the ADMA-OPCO is taking the development of offshore projects very seriously. The new Sarb Full Field Development project, the Umm Al Lulu and the Al Nasr project combined are expected to increase the emirate’s production capacity by 300,000 bpd, with a projected combined spend of over $10 billion.
This list was comiled with the help of Venture Middle East. Operating throughout the region, Ventures Middle East management consultants and market researchers are positioned to advise clients on issues allowing them to develop strategies that achieve and sustain a competitive advantage in the GCC, MENA. With their help, we proudly bring you this year’s top five offshore projects in the GCC!
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Barzan North Field Development
Country: Qatar
Client: ExxonMobil Corporation and Qatar Petroleum
Consultant: Chioyda Corporation and J Ray McDemott
Contractor: Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)/JGV Corp.
Estimated Value: $8 billion
Estimated Production: 3700 mcf/d of gas
Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil and ExxonMobil Barzan Limited joined together to develop the Barzan offshore natural gas project in Qatar’s North Field, in order to help the Gulf Arab state meet its rising domestic gas demand.
Qatar’s liquefied natural gas producing company, RasGas, has safely and successfully completed offshore drilling for 30 development wells for the US$10.3 billion Barzan Gas Project, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
The 30 wells – spread over three offshore wellhead platforms, have a total length of approximately 138 kilometres, reaching more than 3,000 metres below the sea level.
The complex, Barzan offshore drilling operations, required three jackup drilling rigs for a combined total of 4,740 days and involving more than 300 employees at any given time working in the challenging offshore conditions, RasGas said.
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Arabiyah and Hasbah Oilfield
Country: Saudi Arabia
Client: Saudi Aramco
Consultant: SNC Lavalin
Contractor: SK Engineering & Construction; Samsung Engineering and Saipem Limited
Estimated Value: $6 billion
Estimated Production: 1700 mcf/d of gas
The Arabiyah and Hasbah fields, located approximately 150 km northeast of Jubail industrial city, are part of Al Wasit Gas Programme.
The fields will be part of the the Wasit Gas Programme which will see the construction of an onshore greenfield Central Processing Facility (CPF) capable of processing 2.5 bcf/d of gas from the two fields and produce approximately 1.75 bcf/d of sales gas to meet market needs for local feedstock and support the national economy.
As Saudi Arabia pushes to diversify its energy mix by developing its massive gas reserves to meet growing local demand for electricity, the Arabiyah and Hasbah fields are a very welcome development.
The Arabiyah and Hasbah will have seven and six single-well platforms respectively, each well producing an average of around 200 mcf/d, all converging to one tie-in platform per field. Saudi Aramco awarded the EPIC contract to Saipem to complete development of the two fields.
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Upper Zakum Production Facilities
Country: United Arab Emirates
Client: Zadco
Consultant: Technip
Contractor: Petrofac Emirates
Estimated Value: $8.79 billion
Estimated Production: 250,000 bpd
ZADCO has a target to increase the production rate from Upper Zakum from 550,000 to 750,000 bpd by 2015, sustained for 25 years. Offshore developments are playing a key role in Abu Dhabi’s efforts to increase its crude production capacity to 3.5 million bpd from today’s estimated 2.7 million bpd.
The Upper Zakum field will be developed in three phases, with the FEED studies being carried out by Technip.
The first involves the construction of an early production facility to increase production to 100,000 bpd by 2015. The second will boost production to 150,000 bpd through the construction of permanent production facilities. And the final phase will see a series of smaller projects to raise production to the 750,000 bpd target.
Petrofac Emirates was awarded a $2.9 billion contract for the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of Island surface facilities on four artificial islands. All are due to start operating in 2016. ZADCO is an ADNOC subsidiary – ExxonMobil and Japan Oil are also shareholders.
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SARB Full Field Development
Country: United Arab Emirates
Client: Adma-Opco
Consultant: Fluor Mideast Limited (Fluor Corporation)
Contractor: Petrofac and Hyundai Engineering
Estimated Value: $3.5 billion
Estimated Production: 100,000 bpd
The Satah al-Razboot (SARB) offshore oil field is located about 200km northwest of Abu Dhabi. The oilfield is expected to add an additional 100,000 bpd to the overall oil production capacity of UAE when commissioned in 2016. SARB development is a part of the critical push from Abu Dhabi’s side to ramp up the production by nearly 35 per cent to 3.5 million barrels per day.
ADNOC is the sole owner of the field with ADMA-OPCO as the developer. The offshore project is being implemented in seven stages. It primarily involves the reclamation and construction of two artificial islands, to facilitate drilling works for the extraction of crude oil from the field.
Petrofac will supply 200 km (124 mi) of subsea pipelines for well fluid, water injection, gas injection, flare, and export; 3 km (1.8 mi) of onshore pipeline; and 55 km (34 mi) of subsea power and communication cables.
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Umm Al Lulu
Country: United Arab Emirates
Client: Adma-Opco
Consultant: Mott MacDonald; Fluor Mideast Limited and Technip
Contractor: NPCC/Technip
Estimated Value: $3.65 billion
Estimated Production: 100,000 b/d
The UL development is a strategic initiative of ADNOC and is part of ADMA-OPCO’s plans to add 300 mbpd of additional production from its new fields: Umm Lulu, Nasr and SARB as part of its overall scheme to raise its oil production from the current 600,000 bpd to around one million bpd by 2020.
The field is being developed in two phases; in Phase-1, two Well Head Towers are being installed along with other facilities and the well fluids will be processed through the facilities of an ADNOC Group company; the EPC work of this phase is currently in progress.
UL Phase II includes the EPC work of Package-1, which is specified above and the EPC work of Package-2 which comprises the construction of a SuperComplex consisting of a gas treatment platform, a separation platform, a riser platform, a utilities platform, an accommodation platform, a water disposal platform and two flare platforms.
ADMA-OPCO has signed a $765.94 million Engineering, Procurement ‘&’ Construction contract for Umm Lulu Full Field Development Project Package-1 with the National Petroleum Construction Company.
