ABU DHABI: The mother of invention
For a place that has a reputation for conservatism, Abu Dhabi's gas sector has managed to rack up its fair share of regional firsts over the past 30 years. It was the first Gulf producer to adopt a zero gas flaring policy back in the 1970s. A decade later, it produced the Gulf's first drop of liquefied natural gas (LNG). And now it is on the verge of becoming the first consumer of gas piped in from one of its neighbours.
Innovation will be key if Abu Dhabi is to meet its own and the UAE's gas challenge over the coming decades. For as the Dolphin project has underlined, the traditional approach to delivering gas from Abu Dhabi's onshore fields to the local network will have to be supplemented with alternatives if the rampant demand for gas from industry, the oil sector and utilities is to be met.
The scale of the gas challenge is huge. Speaking at the Gastech 2006 conference in early December, Yves Pouradier of Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Company (Gasco) said that sweet gas demand from the industrial, power generation and oil sectors was rising by 20 per cent a year in Abu Dhabi alone. The figure does not take into account the 15 per cent annual growth in power demand in Dubai, or the pent-up demand from industries and generators in the northern emirates.
The demand outlook has forced a radical rethink. Abu Dhabi's substantial sour gas reserves are now being targeted for development, Gasco is pressing ahead with a programme to process offshore associated gas onshore for the first time, and a series of alternative energy initiatives are under consideration for power generation.
Abu Dhabi's sour gas reserves make up close to 50 per cent of the UAE's reserve base of 214 trillion cubic feet, the fifth largest in the world. Their exploitation has been considered for over a decade, but the high development costs have acted as a deterrent. That looks set to change however, with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) kicking off in mid-December the process of selecting an international partner to assist in developing the reserves.
The programme, expected to cost up to $10,000 million, aims to deliver about 3,000 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) to the network by 2011/12. ADNOC will form a 60:40 joint venture with a foreign partner to undertake the project, ranked as one of the most challenging in Gulf energy history, given the sour composition of the gas and its high pressure.
Gasco has carried out some initial sour gas studies itself. Yet, its main focus has been on boosting its conventional gas supplies. A $6,000 million onshore investment programme is now well under way. On completion in 2009, Gasco's processing capacity will jump by a quarter to 6,600 million cf/d and its sweet gas production by 16 per cent to 3,200 million cf/d.
Gasco is increasingly getting involved in offshore gas processing. One of the projects under its $6,000 million programme is the offshore associated gas (OAG) scheme, which will see in the initial phase 200 million cf/d of offshore gas transferred to the existing onshore gas processing complex at Habshan. OAG will be followed up with another multi-billion-dollar scheme. Known as the integrated gas development (IGD), it will handle a further 500 million cf/d of gas produced offshore, to be processed at a new plant at Habshan.
Abu Dhabi is looking beyond sour gas and its offshore reserves, however. Under the Masdar initiative, government-owned Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) is planning a host of alternative energy projects. 'Through Masdar we are considering hundreds of new technologies for alternative energy,' says Dolphin chief executive officer Ahmed Ali al-Sayegh, who is also ADFEC's managing director. 'There are alternative energies which are available today. We are investing in research and development to make sure these projects happen.'
Much of Masdar's work centres around generation. It is co
For a place that has a reputation for conservatism, Abu Dhabi's gas sector has managed to rack up its fair share of regional firsts over the past 30 years. It was the first Gulf producer to adopt a zero gas flaring policy back in the 1970s. A decade later, it produced the Gulf's first drop of liquefied natural gas (LNG). And now it is on the verge of becoming the first consumer of gas piped in from one of its neighbours.
Innovation will be key if Abu Dhabi is to meet its own and the UAE's gas challenge over the coming decades. For as the Dolphin project has underlined, the traditional approach to delivering gas from Abu Dhabi's onshore fields to the local network will have to be supplemented with alternatives if the rampant demand for gas from industry, the oil sector and utilities is to be met. The scale of the gas challenge is huge. Speaking at the Gastech 2006 conference in early December, Yves Pouradier of Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Company (Gasco) said that sweet gas demand from the industrial, power generation and oil sectors was rising by 20 per cent a year in Abu Dhabi alone. The figure does not take into account the 15 per cent annual growth in power demand in Dubai, or the pent-up demand from industries and generators in the northern emirates. The demand outlook has forced a radical rethink. Abu Dhabi's substantial sour gas reserves are now being targeted for development, Gasco is pressing ahead with a programme to process offshore associated gas onshore for the first time, and a series of alternative energy initiatives are under consideration for power generation. Abu Dhabi's sour gas reserves make up close to 50 per cent of the UAE's reserve base of 214 trillion cubic feet, the fifth largest in the world. Their exploitation has been considered for over a decade, but the high development costs have acted as a deterrent. That looks set to change however, with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) kicking off in mid-December the process of selecting an international partner to assist in developing the reserves. The programme, expected to cost up to $10,000 million, aims to deliver about 3,000 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) to the network by 2011/12. ADNOC will form a 60:40 joint venture with a foreign partner to undertake the project, ranked as one of the most challenging in Gulf energy history, given the sour composition of the gas and its high pressure. Gasco has carried out some initial sour gas studies itself. Yet, its main focus has been on boosting its conventional gas supplies. A $6,000 million onshore investment programme is now well under way. On completion in 2009, Gasco's processing capacity will jump by a quarter to 6,600 million cf/d and its sweet gas production by 16 per cent to 3,200 million cf/d. Gasco is increasingly getting involved in offshore gas processing. One of the projects under its $6,000 million programme is the offshore associated gas (OAG) scheme, which will see in the initial phase 200 million cf/d of offshore gas transferred to the existing onshore gas processing complex at Habshan. OAG will be followed up with another multi-billion-dollar scheme. Known as the integrated gas development (IGD), it will handle a further 500 million cf/d of gas produced offshore, to be processed at a new plant at Habshan. Abu Dhabi is looking beyond sour gas and its offshore reserves, however. Under the Masdar initiative, government-owned Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) is planning a host of alternative energy projects. 'Through Masdar we are considering hundreds of new technologies for alternative energy,' says Dolphin chief executive officer Ahmed Ali al-Sayegh, who is also ADFEC's managing director. 'There are alternative energies which are available today. We are investing in research and development to make sure these projects happen.' Much of Masdar's work centres around generation. It is coThis content is only available to full MEED package subscribers (MEED magazine and MEED.com).
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