Oman Gas Company (OGC) is planning a project to extract natural gas liquids (NGL) from pipeline gas to feed the proposed petrochemicals project at the northern port of Sohar.

“This project is at the feasibility stage… the front-end engineering and design (feed) phase will commence shortly, next year,” said OGC’s chief executive officer (CEO) Yousuf Bin Mohammad al-Ojaili, speaking at MEED’s Oman Projects Forum in Muscat.

“There is an opportunity to extract ethane, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and condensate from pipeline gas,” he added.

The project will be built at the Fahud oil and gas field in north central Oman, with the liquids exported to Oman Refining and Petroleum Industries Company’s (orpic) proposed steam cracker complex in Sohar. Al-Ojaili said that the project would be executed by OGC on behalf of Orpic.

Orpic is planning to build a $3.6bn petrochemicals complex in Sohar to produce polyethylene and other commodity plastics. The state-owned company tendered the feed contract in the third quarter of 2013.