The Korea Express left its home port last month, winding its way through the ocean as workers on a distant island in Abu Dhabi raced to make room for the vessel's cargo.
On Das Island, the hub for the emirate's offshore oil and gas industry, workers built up the shore with rocks from Ras Al Khaimah and long steel pilings, extending the tiny strip of land by 700 metres to the west.
The industrial barge's load - three huge steel structures that twist and turn like giant pieces of gym equipment - arrived yesterday, just a week after the foundations were finished.
The delivery is part of a US$11 billion (Dh40.4bn) project to increase the emirate's natural gas supply that is in its final stages.
Called the Integrated Gas Development, it is Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's project to bring more fuel to the emirate required for power generation and to increase oil production at fields where natural gas is a by-product.
On its scheduled completion next August it will connect offshore fields to dry land through Das Island and includes gas processing plants onshore at Ruwais, underwater pipelines and facilities to strip sulphur from the gas, most of which will come from the Umm Shaif field.
The project is on schedule, said Fahim Kazim, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). Adnoc is studying other ways to increase gas capacity and will soon complete its review, he added.
"The potential for the future is coming from the offshore," he said.
"There is a pressing demand for the gas, so I think there is a high pressure for this review to be completed."
Abu Dhabi sits on the world's fifth-biggest conventional gas reserves but has growing needs for fuel to generate enough power for its residents. It is also locked in to long-term gas export contracts.
To meet demand, it imports gas from Qatar by pipeline and is developing the challenging Shah sour gasfield, a $10bn project. The emirate also plans to build a gas import terminal in Fujairah and is building a $20bn nuclear power plant.
Abu Dhabi has "no way" to increase gas exports, said Mr Kazim.
The land reclamation began in 2010 but work was held up because of the weather. During construction, dredgers pulled up sand from 20km west of Das Island.
"We were nervous," said Mr Kazim of the project.
"We can't have the modules shipped without having the land."
Building the foundations, which rise 12 metres above sea level, was challenging because of nearby oil and gas pipelines.
The modules that arrived yesterday will be patched together with others en route from Ulsan, Hyundai Heavy Industries' production site on the east coast of South Korea.
ayee@thenational.ae
twitter: Follow and share our breaking business news. Follow us
iPad users can read the digital edition of business section as it was printed via our e-reader app. Click here
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
MANDOOB
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Ali%20Kalthami%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Mohammed%20Dokhei%2C%20Sarah%20Taibah%2C%20Hajar%20Alshammari%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
