Banagas to revamp LPG plant

24 January 2003
Bahrain National Gas Company (Banagas)is planning a debottlenecking and revamp of its existing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) processing and storage facilities. The invitation to bid is due to be issued in late January for the contract to draw up front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for the project, which entails adding 20 million-30 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) to the plant's existing gas processing capacity of 280 million cf/d.

Prequalifiers for the FEED package are understood to include Bechtel, Fluor Daniel, Stone & Websterand Foster Wheeler Corporation- all of the US - and Paris-based Technip-Coflexip. The FEED - covering trains 1 and 2, product transfer pipelines and storage facilities for refrigerated products - is scheduled to take six-eight months to complete. Banagas expects to issue in early 2004 the tender for the main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package.

The increase in capacity is intended to handle the additional volumes of off-gas expected to come on stream by mid-2006 from the Sitra refinery operated by Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco). Bapco is pressing ahead with plans to build a 40,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) low-sulphur diesel production (LSDP) unit at the 220,000-b/d refinery.

Banagas also expects to handle within the next five years an additional 20 million cf/d of associated gas from the Bahrain field, which produces about 180 million cf/d (Bahrain, MEED Special Report, 13:9:02, pages 33-34).

Japan's JGC Corporationis already working on boosting the plant's gas compression facilities. The installation of a seventh compressor unit, with capacity to handle 50 million cf/d of gas, is on schedule for completion by the end of the year. JGC is also carrying out work to increase the capacity of the main supply pipeline between Sitra and the central gas processing plant.

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