Abu Dhabi : Fluor Corp. and CH2M Hill Companies unit Veco Corp. signed project management contracts on Wednesday with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) for the Shah sour-gas project, a person familiar with the situation said.
Adnoc will proceed with the $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) project to develop the gasfield despite ConocoPhillips' exit from the scheme, the Abu Dhabi-based company told WAM in a statement earlier yesterday. Adnoc will award five contracts for the engineering, procurement of materials, construction and operation of the project in the near future, it said in the statement.
"[The] Shah Gas field development is a world-class project that will develop a key resource for the emirate of Abu Dhabi," Adnoc said.
Withdrawal
Third-largest US oil firm Conoco announced on Wednesday it had ended its participation in the Shah project, its second withdrawal in a month from high-profile projects in the Gulf. Conoco is restructuring operations to concentrate on oil and gas exploration and production and reduce its heavy debt burden.
The Shah scheme is to pump and purify gas with a high content of potentially deadly sulphur dioxide, making it tougher and more expensive to produce than conventional gas. A large part of the $10 billion investment would have gone into the gas processing facilities. Conoco would have held a 40 per cent stake in the project.
Shah would pump around 1 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of raw gas, which after processing would give 540 million cfd of gas fit for consumption.
Adnoc and Conoco had already commissioned work on the project. The two awarded a $300 million deal for site preparation in March.
