ABU DHABI Gas Industries (Gasco) has awarded the main contract for large capacity gas pipeline between Habshan, the site of Abu Dhabi’s biggest onshore oil field, and refining, industrial and power developments in the west of the largest UAE emirate.
The project is an essential part of the Abu Dhabi government’s plan to provide additional supplies to transportation fuels and electricity to its expanding domestic market as it attempts to diversify the emirate’s economy away from crude oil production.
The onshore natural gas unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has awarded a lump-sum turnkey contract to India’s Larsen & Toubro for engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the planned pipeline. It put the total cost of the project at about Dh695 million ($189 million).
The 122-km pipeline will carry gas to Abu Dhabi’s largest petroleum refinery, at Ruwais on the Gulf coast, at which point its diameter will shrink from 52 in to 48 in for the second leg of its journey to the Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority’s complex at Shuweihat.
The pipeline project should be finished in the 4th quarter of 2013, with the main pipeline section to Ruwais scheduled for completion within 24 months and the extension within 26 months. Front-end engineering and design of the pipeline was completed earlier this year.
Takreer, the refining arm of Adnoc, is undertaking a $10 billion project that will take the capacity of Ruwais from 400,000 bpd capacity to 817,000 bpd. That development will bring Abu Dhabi’s total oil processing capacity to more than 900,000 bpd when it is complete in 2014.
Abu Dhabi’s largest onshore supply of associated gas is at Habshan, where Gasco has large gas-processing facilities for removing impurities such as sulphur from the gas stream. For the past several years, the Adnoc gas unit has been working with other Adnoc operating subsidiaries to optimize the supply of associated gas from the emirate’s oil fields.
As well as the big Takreer refinery, Abu Dhabi’s largest petrochemical projects are located at Ruwais. Many of those facilities require supplies of feedstock derived from natural gas. Abu Dhabi also uses gas to fuel almost all of its electricity generation.
Adwea, which is government-owned, indirectly holds large stakes in two 2-GW independent power and water projects at Shuweihat through its majority-owned Abu Dhabi National Energy Company subsidiary.
A third gas-fired power and water plant is planned at the site. Masdar, the Abu Dhabi governmnent-owned clean energy company, also plans to build a hydrogen-fired power plant at Shuweihat in partnership with BP.
The $2.2-billion joint venture was originally scheduled for completion in 2014, but in January was indefinitely postponed. Abu Dhabi, which produces most of the UAE’s oil and gas, has been seeking to expand its gas supply as domestic consumption of the fuel in recent years has been growing faster than the emirate’s production capacity.
