State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has awarded front-end engineering and design (Feed) contracts for its offshore ulta-sour gas fields, as the emirate looks to ramp-up gas production to meet growing domestic demand.
UK's Bechtel was awarded the Feed contract for Hail and Ghasha, while the contract for the Dalma field was awarded to UAE-based TechnipFMC. The Feed study for the mega-project is set to be completed by the end of 2019, after which engineering, procurement and construction tenders are expected to be awarded, according to an Adnoc spokesman. He declined to comment on the value of the contract, citing confidentiality agreements but said they were in the range of "hundreds of millions of dirhams".
Known collectively as the North-West Area, the the three fields tap into Abu Dhabi’s Arab formation, which is estimated to hold multiple trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas. The project is expected to produce more than 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (cfd), about 20 per cent of the UAE’s current demand which is enough to provide electricity to two million homes, Adnoc said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The growth in energy demand in Abu Dhabi, and the wider UAE, has prompted Adnoc to further harness its gas resources, as part of its 2030 smart growth strategy. This Feed award provides Adnoc with the potential to unlock additional undeveloped sour gas reserves and will allow us to deliver against our strategic objective to ensure a sustainable and economic supply of gas,” Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Adnoc Group chief executive said.
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Abu Dhabi announced a spending plan of $109 billion in November, mainly to unlock its sour gas reserves to meet growing power needs. Natural gas meets almost 98 per cent of the UAE's power requirement, which is currently met through imports of two billion cubic feet a day of gas through the Dolphin Pipeline. The UAE is also considering importing liquefied natural gas from the US to meet peak summer demand.
Adnoc announced a five-year spending plan of $109 billion in November, mainly to unlock its sour gas reserves to meet growing power needs.
Natural gas meets almost 98 per cent of the UAE’s power requirement, which is currently met through imports of two billion cfd of gas through the Dolphin Pipeline.The UAE is also considering importing liquefied natural gas from the US to meet peak summer demand.
Adnoc is evaluating five technology licensor contracts to support the Feed process that will cover treatment, sulphur recovery unit, natural gas liquids, condensates recovery and hydrogen generation, according to its statement.
Adnoc’s upstream business director Abdulmunim Saif Al Kindy said the company was looking to “strictly manage costs” through working with contractors and was looking to deploy experience gained from Abu Dhabi’s ultra-sour Shah gas field development.
US contractor KBR and French design firm Artelia were last year awarded the project management consultancy (PMC) contract to manage Feed on the three gasfields.
Infrastructure requirements for the development include design and construction of eleven offshore artificial islands. KBR is expected to complete the PMC work over 24 months, with an option to extend for another 12 months, according to KBR.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
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Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
