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Saudi Khursaniyah gas plant ready by Oct

Riyadh, April 28, 2009

The central gas processing facility at state oil giant Saudi Aramco's 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) Khursaniyah oilfield is expected to begin operations by October, industry sources said.

The plant had been due to come online with the whole Khursaniyah project in December 2007, but construction had been delayed due to a shortage of labour and materials, a source said.

"The gas plant has two trains. The first one will be ready to start operations in July and the second train by October," a source said.

The onshore gas plant can process around 1 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of gas from the Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah fields. The plant was also expected to process gas from the 1.5 billion cfd offshore Karan gas field when that field starts producing in 2011.

Aramco said last September it had started pumping crude from Khursaniyah, but had not specified actual output. The plant to separate gas and oil output from the field was operating at around 250,000 bpd, one source said.

Khursaniyah was the largest single increment to global oil production capacity for several years when it started. The kingdom was scheduled to bring a much bigger expansion project online in June at Khurais, with capacity to pump 1.2 million bpd.

Khursaniyah and Khurais were the largest projects in the Saudi expansion plan to boost capacity to 12.5 million bpd by mid-2009.

The Khursaniyah field produces light crude, favoured by global refiners because it is easier than heavy crude to process for transport fuels.

Most Saudi gas is produced in association with oil output. Gas supplies have tightened within Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil exporter has cut output to match recessionary oil demand. - Reuters




Tags: Saudi | aramco | gas | Khursaniyah |

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