A contract to set up a multi-million dollar floating gas terminal off the coast of Bahrain will be awarded next month.
The $400 million Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal will be constructed near Khalifa Bin Salman Port, on Bahrain’s northeast shore. Energy Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza said it would be operational by early 2018 and would receive deliveries of LNG by ships.
“We are going to award the contract for constructing a floating terminal in the sea to receive LNG next month,” Dr Mirza told the GDN. He was speaking on the sidelines of the third annual Middle East Operational Excellence Summit 2015, which opened at the Gulf Hotel yesterday.
The two-day event is accompanied by an Oil and Gas Pipelines in the Middle East conference and more than 100 delegates are taking part.
“The $400m dollar (LNG) project is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2018,” said Dr Mirza. “This will allow us to import 400m standard cubic feet (scbf) of gas per day with flexibility to expand it to 800m scbf per day. “This will be a complete solution for Bahrain’s gas requirements and the country will never be short on the quantity of gas needed.”
The GDN reported in March that the National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) was planning to build the floating LNG terminal to augment gas production at the Bahrain Field. “The bidding closed in January for the provision, which is a combination of an LNG floating storage unit and an onshore re-gasification plant,” said Dr Mirza.
He added that work to replace the crude oil pipeline connecting Bahrain and Saudi Arabia was ongoing, after the first construction contracts for the $300m project were awarded last month. The new 30-inch diameter, 115km-long pipeline will run onshore for 73km and below sea for 42km. It will replace the current ageing pipeline.
“The concept of operational excellence has been used from start to the end in this replacement,” said Dr Mirza. “With the new pipeline coming on-stream, the transport capacity from Aramco’s Abqaiq plant to Bahrain will be raised to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 230,000 bpd currently. “The work is expected to be completed by the end of 2017 and the new network is set to be operational in the first quarter of 2018.”
Dr Mirza also singled out Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) and Bapco as examples of operational excellence in Bahrain. “GPIC was named the GCC’s best-performing industrial organisation; Bapco achieved a record of 1.4m man-hours without a lost time accident and Banagas is embarking on an expansion project to increase its capacity by 350m scbf,” he said.
“Last month Bahrain signed a contract with the British company Petrofac, a contract worth about $100m, to build a gas dehydration facility at Tatweer Petroleum. “The capacity of the gas facility will be 500m scbf of gas per day. “This project is the first among those planned by Tatweer to add gas capacity to meet rising domestic demand.”
Dr Mirza said that in light of the downturn in global oil prices governments needed to become more “creative” to remain profitable. “Current market conditions arising from the slump in oil prices has affected the oil and gas industry globally, clogging operating budgets in general,” he said.
“In the given scenario, one of the ways to deal with the downturn is the application of the principles of operational excellence. “Governments and organisations will have to take some austerity measures and come up with new creative solutions on how to remain competitive and profitable.”
