The Khursaniyah Gas Plant in Saudi Arabia treats sour gas from oil fields, producing sales gas, natural gas liquids, and sulfur. Built by the Bechtel-Technip joint venture for Saudi Aramco, the large and complex project was completed in 2010, on time and under budget. It recovers valuable products from 1,000 million standard cubic feet per day of sour gas using acid gas removal and gas sweetening processes.
1. NGL recovery and sweetening on a world scale
Khursaniyah Gas Plant
Our projects
2. Khursaniyah
Jubail
Saudi
Arabia
Arab
ianSea
This large and challenging project was built
on Technip's long experience in gas
processing. Located about 80 km North of
Jubail, Saudi Arabia, it was completed in 2010
by the Bechtel-Technip Joint Venture.
The project was structured in two phases:
FEED and Open Book Estimate (OBE)
CLSTK (Converted Lump Sum Turnkey) contract awarded on
the basis of the OBE together with mechanisms for
adjustment during execution
Such a structure accelerated project execution allowing an
early start to detailed engineering and procurement in parallel
with FEED and seamless rollover to execution.
Client: Saudi Aramco
Contractor: JV Bechtel-Technip (BTJV)
The plant is on stream since June 2010
Contracting Strategy:
a key issue to meeting
the project schedule
A grassroots gas treatment facility built
by Technip for Saudi Aramco
3. Khursaniyah and the wider picture
World oil demand is growing. The 0.5 MMBPD Khursaniyah Programme
is part of Saudi Aramco's commitment to be a reliable supplier of
energy to the world.
Within the Khursaniyah Programme, Saudi Aramco produces 300 MMSCFD of
associated gas from the upstream production facility (KPF). This and associated
gas from the other fields is fed to the Khursaniyah Gas Plant (KGP).
Khursaniyah Gas Plant (KGP)
KGP treats a nominal 1,000 MMSCFD of sour associated gas and exports 560
MMSCFD of sales gas, 300,000 BPD of NGL and 1,800 T/D of molten sulphur.
The gas is sweetened and sweet gas is then treated to recover NGL and
produce sales gas. Acid gas is sent to three Sulphur Recovery Units. Recovered
liquid sulphur is then sent to storage and loading facilities. Sales gas and NGL
are exported via pipeline.
KGP also receives sour hydrocarbon condensate that is treated in the Sour
Condensate Unit with a nominal capacity of 60,000 BPD.
4. The multi-centre engineering and
procurement task forces included
teams from Technip and Bechtel in
Rome, Italy, and London, UK.
Exceptional Project Management skills
enabled the coordination of nearly
200 million direct manhours on
construction over a 3-year period.
KGP in numbers
PLOT SURFACE 4 km2
UNDERGROUND PIPING 180 km
ABOVE GROUND PIPING 10,000 lines, avg.
dia. 6”, 900 km,
75.000+ tonnes
STEEL STRUCTURE 65,000 tonnes
CONCRETE 300,000 m3
INSTRUMENT CABLES 2,600 km
POWER/CONTROL CABLE 2,200 km
LIGHTING CABLES 2,000 km
BUILDINGS 30 buildings; 20,000 m2
POWER 175 MVA overall
DCS 30,000 I/O’s
HOME OFFICE MANHOURS 3.0 million
FIELD SUPERVISION MANHOURS 4.5 million (17,300 man-months)
CONSTRUCTION MANHOURS 198 million (17,000 direct manpower at peak)
Project Management
Khursaniyah Gas Plant
Oil production
300 MMSCF
C2+ NGL
Other sources
of associated gas
KPF
Sales gas
Molten sulphur
0.5 MMBPD
KGP
Utilities
storage
Condensates
300 MMSCF
Sour
condensers
treatment
5. Contractors Joint Venture
The FEED and CLSTK contracts were awarded to the Bechtel-Technip
Joint Venture (BTJV), two major contractors in Oil & Gas.
The JV set up a Directorate in the Rome office of Technip to provide a
single interface with Saudi Aramco.
Project organisation
The project was managed by the Directorate with key
roles shared between Bechtel and Technip.
Engineering & Procurement execution was distributed
between the two operating centres of Rome (Technip)
and London (Bechtel).
Each center organised its own project team with Project
Manager, Engineering Manager, Process Manager,
Discipline Leaders etc.
Procurement was split between the two centres by
commodity: London dealt with piping and
instrumentation, while Rome managed steel structures, centrifugal compressors and electrical commodities.
All equipment specific to a unit was procured by the operating centre that had developed the related design.
The Directorate led these two project teams, keeping full control of Purchase Orders, Schedules, Estimates (OBE)
and Business Management.
Technip and Bechtel have previously worked together on similar major gas projects in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Capitalising on this, the two companies harmonised project procedures, schedules and IT tools.
The challenge
The supply and construction markets were heavily
loaded during the project due to the number of
investments made at the same time. Considering the
significant procurement quantities, the project
committed to early production with a number of
manufacturers to ensure on-time delivery.
6. Many nationalities worked on site. People from Egypt, the Philippines, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and India were the largest communities among many others. In order
to bridge cultural diversity and language barriers, intensive training programmes
were organised, using a multilingual approach and pictorial aids. These included
both general induction training as well as dedicated sessions for specific subjects
(working at heights, confined space, etc.).
Given the large perimeter of the construction site, special attention was given to
the monitoring of HSE practices, through a dedicated HSE team, involving our
Joint Venture partner and the main construction subcontractor.
With so many nationalities present on site with diverse cultures, instilling a
common HSE culture in all activities was a major challenge. A challenge that the
site team met through consistent and effective communication of the standards
required.
The Joint Venture's HSE programme that was created specifically for the project
was followed and implemented by the Construction subcontractor. By doing this
the team succeeded in keeping incident rates very low with a Total Recordable
Case Frequency no higher than 0.03 at any time.
Environment
The project had minimisation of harm to the environment as a permanent
objective. It set up detailed disposal programmes, especially for construction
waste. As an example, three temporary evaporation ponds were built for the
disposal of all kinds of water without affecting the land. Chemical-
contaminated fluids were carefully disposed of by a specialised company.
Saudisation
Saudisation was encouraged by Saudi Aramco. BTJV employed almost all major
suppliers of pressure vessels and steel structures in the country and had many
Saudis employed on the site team.
This document is the property of Technip and is not intended to be a binding contractual document.
Any information contained herein shall not result in any binding obligation on the part of Technip, or any of its affiliates,
and is provided for information purposes only.
Technip - Group Communications - May 2011 - Photo credits: Technip, Jean Gaumy / Magnum Photos
HSE
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LNG/GTL Product Line
Phil Hagyard
Phone: +33 (0)1 47 78 27 17
e-mail: phagyard@technip.com
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