Offshore engineering is being carried out by the local Petrocon while the US’ Foster Wheeler is doing onshore design and management on the project.

Earlier in 2008, it was revealed Aramco would increase capacity at the field by 50 per cent as it aims to keep pace with soaring domestic demand (MEED 1:2:08).

The offshore field, which is thought to contain more than 9 trillion cubic feet of gas, was originally slated to produce 1 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas, but this has now been raised to 1.5 billion cf/d.

The offshore Karan field is about 100 kilometres north of the world’s largest onshore field, Ghawar.