Al Khobar: Saudi Aramco has invited Saudi-based companies to begin the qualification process to compete for deals to build the Wasit and Shaybah gas plants, two industry sources said yesterday.
The plants form part of a push by the world's top oil exporter to boost gas capacity to meet domestic demand growth of around 7 per cent per year.
Falling global oil consumption has left the kingdom sitting on its biggest crude supply cushion in years and allowed it to shift attention from oil to gas.
Wasit would be the largest gas plant in Saudi Arabia, with a capacity to process 2.5 billion cubic feet per day. It would process gas from two non-associated offshore gas fields, Hasbah and Arabiyah.
Firms interested in contracts have until May 19 to submit their paperwork for prequalification.
Aramco has set May 25 as the deadline for documents to qaulify to bid for a new natural gas liquids (NGL) plant at the 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) Shaybah oilfield, sources said.
The plant would strip out NGLs from gas while producing around 1,400 million cubic feet per day (cfd) for reinjection in the oilfield. The top oil exporter's production capacity of raw gas — unprocessed natural gas — of 10.2 billion cfd was expected to hit 15.5 billion cfd by 2015, Aramco's chief executive, Khalid Al Falih said last month.
