Sharjah National Oil Corporation completes second phase of gas storage project
Future expansion of the project will potentially serve gas supply to the entire UAE
Sharjah: Sharjah National Oil Corporation (SNOC) announced Monday it has completed the second phase of its underground gas storage project in the Moveyeid field. The project started in 2017 with a small-scale pilot phase and expanded into phase two with larger gas volumes in January 2021.
SNOC said it would enter into a new area of business with the completion of this project phase and will help balance the gas supply and demand for Sharjah to meet the required supply flexibility for the Emirate’s power sector.
Hatem Al Mosa, CEO of SNOC, said, “The completion of this project is an outstanding achievement considering the local and international supply chain challenges we met during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was completed without any operational, safety or environmental incidents.”
He added, “The timely launch of this project is a major new business development activity for SNOC. It will allow us to store excess gas in the winter to satisfy the UAE’s summer peak electricity demand and provide a readily available strategic reserve for energy security, allowing us to respond to unexpected operational or market challenges.”
He added, “The next phase of this project could potentially increase capacity up to four times its current level and can serve the whole of the UAE, and not only Sharjah.”
The second phase concluded with the successful execution of Underbalanced Coil Tubing Drilling (UBCTD) well simulations, a technique in which horizontal legs are drilled in existing wells, thereby enhancing the accessibility of the reservoir, explained SNOC.
The implementation of this technique has substantially improved well performance while significantly lowering the required injection pressure, leading to considerable cost savings, it said.