Natural gas is at the heart of the process of change in Saudi Arabia's hydrocarbons industry.
The Kingdom is one of the world's top five gas producers, ranks fourth in terms of gas reserves and has initiated major gas exploration programmes to add to its reserves base and make possible the expansion of its domestic gas network - the Master Gas System (MGS).
Saudi Arabia has identified three specific targets with regards to its gas reserves - to meet domestic gas demand and optimise ethane and natural gas liquids (NGL) utilisation up to 2025 and beyond; to identify the ultimate economically-recoverable gas reserves of the country; and to identify the appropriate near-term measures which will allow the ongoing development of the gas sector.
Saudi Aramco is now looking to meet soaring domestic demand for this more environmentally-friendly fuel, and has turned its attentions firmly to translating this valuable and plentiful resource into a significant contributor to the Saudi economy. Some 40 per cent of the Kingdom's natural gas production is used to meet local consumption in electric power generation, 25 per cent is supplied to the petrochemical sector, and the rest is consumed in water desalination, oil and gas operations, the production of steel and cement and other small industries.
According to recent figures, the Kingdom uses more gas per capita than leading high income Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries such as Germany, Japan and the UK.
Saudi Aramco has taken major steps recently to expand the MGS to meet expected future demand from industries and the capital city Riyadh. As a result, a new gas processing plant has recent come onstream, another is being built and capacity at existing plants has been expanded through debottlenecking schemes. Local distribution networks are also being expanded - Riyadh receiving sales gas for the first time to fuel its power plants last year.
The Hawiyah Gas Plant was the latest plant to come onstream last year and is considered one of Saudi Arabia's most important engineering projects. The economic implications of the facility will be significant too.
With a processing capacity of approximately 1.6 billion cu ft per day of non-associated gas, 150,000 bpd of condensates and 1,000 tonnes per day (tpd) of sulphur, Hawiyah boosts total MGS capacity to 10 billion cu ft per day. The plant, located approximately 200 km South of Dhahran and about 270 km East of Riyadh, is the first gas plant in Saudi Arabia to run entirely on nonassociated gas.
In addition to the gas plant, the project included field development operations; the drilling of 60 gas wells; and the construction of a large cluster of gas transmission and processing, sulphur recovery, condensate stabilisation and utility facilities.
MGS expansion continues. The Hawiyah project will be followed by a new 1.6 billion cu ft per day capacity gas plant at Haradh, which is currently under construction and will be finished by next year.
As of the end of July this year the Haradh plant - located around 280 km southwest of Dhahran - was more than 50 per cent complete and was six weeks ahead of schedule.
The project will, according to Saudi Aramco, recover 145,000 bpd of high quality condensates, which will be supplied to Abqaiq Plants, via a 230 km pipeline, for treatment. Treated condensates will then be transported to Ras Tanura Refinery for fractionation into final products to meet the growing needs of the domestic market.
Gas supplies to feed the Haradh Gas Plant will be produced from several non-associated gasfields the company has discovered in recent years following aggressive exploration programmes - including the Haradh, Ghazal, Wudayhi, Waqr, Jufayn and Tinat fields.
The Haradh gas project is made up of the gas plant, an upstream gas-gathering manifold and transmission-line system; a downstream gas and condensate pipeline network; and residential housing for 1,000 men, with an air strip and dual 230 kV overhead power transmission lines.
Thus by next year, Saudi Aramco's MGS will consist of six gas plants - Uthmaniyah, Shedgum, Ju'aymah and Berri - in addition to Hawiyah and Haradh, plus a network of enhanced MGS facilities to support Saudi Arabia's long term gas demand forecasts.
The Uthmaniyah, Shedgum and Berri plants have all been the focus of debottlenecking projects recently. At Shedgum, gas processing capacity has been increased by 20 per cent to 2.4 billion cu ft per day.
At Berri, a major upgrade will see a new ethane and NGL recovery plant being built for completion early next year.
The ethane and NGL recovery plant will process 1.24 billion cu ft per day of gas, making some 280 million cu ft per day of chemical feedstock available to industries in Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi Aramco. The facility will be the first of its kind in the Kingdom.
Gas from these plants is supplied to the sales gas distribution grid, with NGLs being supplied to downstream fractionation plants at Ju'aymah and Yanbu. It is these downstream facilities which supply petrochemical feedstock and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for industrial use and export.
The latest MGS developments mark the another chapter in the Kingdom's drive to expand natural gas use, adapt industries to run on gas and diversity its economic base.
It is a process which began in the 1970 when the MGS was established as an efficient way of gathering and utilising associated gas to stimulate industry.
Today this gas, both associated and non-associated, is the backbone of Saudi Arabia's rapid industrial growth - as the world-class petrochemical plants at the industrial cities of Jubail and Yanbu testify.
The resource is acknowledged as being more environmentally-friendly than crude oil. Its industrial utilisation also releases more hydrocarbon liquids for export.
The recent moves at Hawiyah and Haradh to process non-associated gas is a result of the relative inflexibility of associated gas. For example, to increase associated gas production, oil production must also be increased. Saudi Aramco therefore began a programme of developing non-associated gas in the early 1980s to provide fuel and feedstock to domestic industries during periodic shortfalls of associated gas supplies.
