UK/Dutch oil major Shell Group is working on the front-end engineering and design (feed) tender for the estimated $10bn Bab sour gas project in Abu Dhabi, which it is developing with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

“We are targeting production from Bab by the end of the decade,” said Andrew Vaughan, vice-president Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Syria at Shell, speaking at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec 2013) in the UAE capital on 10 November.

“We are finalising agreements with Adnoc. We are still working on a feed tender… and will have a clearer timeline in 2014,” he added.

In April, Shell announced it had agreed to take a 40 per cent stake in the new joint venture. The Bab sour gas reservoirs, located 150 kilometres southwest of Abu Dhabi city, will be costly and technically challenging to develop due to high levels of toxic hydrogen sulphide, which must be removed through processing.

The development is expected to have a capacity of about 1 billion cf/d of sour gas, which will be processed to a smaller amount of sales gas and associated sulphur and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), similar to Abu Dhabi’s under-development Shah gas project.

Vaughn said Shell plans to utilise the sulphur produced at Bab for local industries due to the volatile nature of the global elemental sulphur market.

“We plan to use Shell technology to convert sulphur into concrete, as a bitumen replacement, and for fertiliser production,” said Vaughan.” It is a small market at the moment, but will grow.”