Saudi Aramco is expected to receive bid submissions on 18 August for the front-end engineering and design (feed) for its planned 1 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) gas field at the Fadhili oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Engineering consultancies are formulating bids and the tender is open for companies who are also outside of Aramco’s engineering services contract, the general engineering services plus (GES plus).

The tender allows 65 per cent of the work to be done on an out-of-kingdom (OOK) basis with the remaining 35 per cent being done in-kingdom (IK). It is estimated that between 300,000 to 400,000 man-hours will be needed to complete the feed work.  

The engineering consultancies bidding for the feed contract include:

• Fluor (US)
• Foster Wheeler (US)
• Jacobs Engineering (US)
• KBR (US)
• Mustang Engineering (US)
• SNC Lavalin (Canada)
• WorleyParsons (US)

“It is a gas plant and it is a good size,” says an oil and gas source based in Saudi Arabia. “Until the feed is fully completed no-one will be completely sure about the set up, but I think it will be very similar to the plant and associated works that are under construction at Wasit.”

If Aramco decides to execute the project in a similar way to the Wasit gas development, then four engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages will be released. Waist’s onshore facilities are under execution in the Eastern Province.  

The Wasit onshore EPC packages were:

• Main inlet and gas processing facilities;
• Natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionating column
• Sulphur recovery facilities and utilities
• Cogeneration plant

MEED reported in January 2011 that South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction and Samsung Engineering had been selected for the Wasit onshore works.

EPC contractors operating in the kingdom are expecting the tenders to be released for the Fadhili plant in the third quarter of 2014.

MEED reported in early August that initial scope of works for the Fadhili plant will be to process gas from the Khursaniyah oil field and Hasbah non-associated gas field.

Saudi Aramco has ramped up its offshore non-associated gas operations in the Gulf in recent years and is developing several fields in the region. These include the Karan, Hasbah and Arabiyah fields.

Much of the gas contained in Aramco’s Eastern Province hydrocarbon assets has a high sulphur content, so is more difficult to process than sweeter gas.

Aramco is ramping up its gas operations to supply the kingdom with gas for both power generation and industrial use. It plans to produce 15 billion cf/d of gas for domestic use by 2017-18.