Aramco awards $25bn in contracts for gas projects
Saudi Aramco has awarded contracts worth more than $25bn to progress phase two development of the Jafurah unconventional gas field, phase three expansion of the master gas system, new gas rigs, and ongoing capacity maintenance, the company announced on June 30.
The contracts include $12.4bn for the Jafurah project, $8.8bn for the master gas system, and $2.4bn for gas rigs. “The scale of our ongoing investment at Jafurah and the expansion of our master gas system underscores our intention to further integrate and grow our gas business to meet anticipated rising demand,” said Amin H. Nasser, Aramco CEO.
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The work on the Jafurah project will involve the construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, expansion of the Jafurah gas plant including the construction of gas processing trains, utilities, sulphur, and export facilities. It will also involve the construction of the new Riyas natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation facilities in Jubail — including NGL fractionation trains, utilities, storage, and export facilities — to process NGL received from Jafurah.
The master gas system delivers natural gas to customers across Saudi Arabia. The expansion will increase the size of the network and raise its total capacity by an additional 3.15bn ft³/day by 2028, through the installation of around 4,000 km of pipelines and 17 new gas compression trains.
An additional 23 gas rig contracts worth $2.4bn have also been awarded, along with two directional drilling contracts worth $612mn. Meanwhile, 13 well tie-in contracts at Jafurah, worth a total of $1.63bn, have been awarded between December 2022 and May 2024.
The Jafurah unconventional gas field is estimated to contain 229 trillion ft³ of raw gas. Phase one of the Jafurah development programme, which commenced in November 2021, is progressing on schedule with initial start-up anticipated in the third quarter of 2025. Aramco expects total overall lifecycle investment at Jafurah to exceed $100bn and production to reach a sustainable sales gas rate of 2bn ft³/day by 2030, in addition to significant volumes of ethane, NGL, and condensate.
Aramco has also been securing long-term LNG contracts in order to expand its presence in the international energy market. Last month the company signed non-binding contracts with US LNG companies NextDecade and Sempra.
In September of last year, Saudi Aramco bought a minority stake in MidOcean Energy, an LNG firm backed by US-based investor EIG.