Partner Content

A partner’s perspective on working with Sharakat

Saudi Arabia’s water scarcity is at the centre of a blossoming infrastructure market, with private partners at its core. Its prosperity is reflected in the success of a number of flagship projects

By SHARAKAT

RasGas is the world’s second-biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer after Qatargas.

Established in 2001 as a 70:30 joint venture between state energy firm Qatar Petroleum (QP) and the US’ ExxonMobil, the firm was handed the remit of acting as a holding company for current and future gas developments, and instantly came into possession of two LNG trains already commissioned by the partners, with a combined production capacity of 6.6 million tonnes a year (t/y).

Today, the company oversees a total of seven LNG trains with a capacity of 37.5 million t/y. The firm’s chief executive officer is Hamad Rashid al-Mohannadi.

Besides its LNG assets, RasGas also operates the Al-Khaleej gas project at the giant North Field, which provides gas for domestic consumption. The scheme produces about 2 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of sales gas, as well as significant volumes of natural gas liquids – propane and butane – and ethane. According to RasGas, the project helps meet 65 per cent of domestic power demand.

Today, the company oversees a total of seven LNG trains with a capacity of 37.5 million tonnes a year

It is also the developer and operator of the Barzan Gas Company, which aims to produce 1.7 billion cf/d of gas from the North Field by the end of 2014. Barzan is the biggest upstream oil and gas project currently under way in Qatar, at a total cost of more than $10bn. The gas it produces will support a huge planned expansion of petrochemicals production and will provide fuel for new power plants that will be built ahead of the World Cup in 2022. The project’s overall developer is a joint venture of QP and ExxonMobil. The main contractors on the scheme are JGC of Japan and Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea.

Thanks to two giant helium production projects, RasGas is also one of the world’s biggest producers and suppliers of helium gas, with output estimated at 2 billion cubic feet a year (cf/y). RasGas extracts its helium from Qatar’s 14 LNG trains – including those operated by Qatargas – at Ras Laffan. The company’s second helium plant was commissioned in June 2013, adding 1.3 billion cf/y of production. The North Field contains more than a quarter of all known helium on the planet.

RasGas has been integral to the development of Ras Laffan port, the world’s largest LNG export facility, and Ras Laffan Industrial City, which has been an essential part of the development of the Ras Laffan area. It also operates its own fleet of 27 vessels designed to carry LNG.

Once the Barzan project has been completed, RasGas has no major plans to add to its production or processing facilities and will concentrate instead on consolidating its assets and improving efficiency in providing gas to South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Belgium, France, India and Spain. Its only ongoing development project apart from the Barzan scheme is a $300m pipeline and gas reservoir injection scheme, due for completion by the end of 2014.

One of RasGas’ primary objectives over the coming decade will be the use of enhanced recovery techniques to maintain and increase output, as evidenced by the injection project.