Contracts signed with engineering, procurement, and construction firms to build the new plant north of Jubail, Eastern Province. Saudi Aramco has reached another major milestone in its journey toward supplying the Kingdom with clean-burning natural gas for its energy needs to lessen its dependence on liquid fuels such as crude oil. When completed, Fadhili Gas Plant will become a key component of the Kingdom’s Master Gas System, which will meet growing domestic demand for energy by expanding from its current 9.3 billion standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of sales gas in 2015 to 12.2 billion SCFD by 2021. The signing ceremony of last week covered three separate packages:

  • Inlet and Gas Treatment to be built by the Spanish firm Tecnicas Reunidas
  • Process Utilities to be built by Tecnicas Reunidas
  • Sulfur Recovery Units to be built by Petrofac International Ltd. (UAE).

The plant will process 2 billion scfd of Hasbah nonassociated gas and 500 million SCFD of Khursaniyah onshore nonassociated gas. It is expected to produce 1.5 billion SCFD (1,080 BTU/scf) of sales gas, 4,000 metric tons per day of sulfur, and 470 million scfd of gas to fuel an adjacent cogeneration plant, which will provide the plant power and steam requirements and to export about 1,100 megawatts of power. The Fadhili Gas System will be unique in several aspects:

  • Treatment system optimized to feed the Khursaniyah gas directly to the adjacent third-party cogeneration plant. This is in addition to the fact that the adjacent cogen power plant will be developed simultaneously and executed through a special purpose joint venture with a third-party developer as well as SEC.
  • Environmentally, it is being designed with the maximum sulfur recovery of 99.9% utilizing the Tail Gas Treatment process.
  • Using Power Recovery Hydraulic Turbine technology in place of conventional control valves to capture the significant pressure drop in the gas processing trains to generate energy.

Together, our Wasit, Midyan, and Fadhili gas plants will add more than 5 billion scfd of nonassociated gas processing capacity. This will enable opportunities in Saudi industries such as steel, aluminum, and petrochemicals, water desalination plants, electricity production, and downstream value-added industries to produce anti-freeze, solvents, fuels, and other advanced materials.