KHOBAR - Saudi Aramco is gauging contractors' interest for the construction of gas facilities at two fields to meet growing domestic demand, the Middle East Economic Digest weekly reported. Citing unnamed sources, MEED said Aramco would award contracts for project management support and front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the Arabiyah and Shaybah fields in September. Arabiyah is one of two offshore gas fields non-associated with oil Aramco discovered in January. Arabiyah and Hasbah would supply as much as 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of gas, Abdulaziz Al-Judaimi, vice president for new business development at Aramco, said last month. For Arabiyah, Aramco asked contractors to submit bids for the construction of gas facilities at the 900,000 barrels per day Moneefa oilfield, gas platforms and pipelines, MEED reported. Gas facilities are due to start operations in February 2014. This would allow Aramco to process and produce 1 billion cfd of gas, according to MEED. The state-run firm will also invite contractors to bid for the construction of a natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery facility at Shaybah in the Empty Quarter, and other facilities. Bids are due in mid-August and gas facilities are scheduled to come on stream by May 2014, MEED reported. Aramco is expected to bring on stream the expansion of Shaybah oilfield. which would take capacity at the field to 750,000 bpd by the third-quarter of this year.
