Shah gas project on target

The US$10 billion venture between California’s Occidental and Abu Dhabi’s Adnoc will process 1 billion cubic feet a day of sour gas into 500 million cubic feet of gas after stripping it from sulfur.

The UAE’s US$10 billion Shah gas project is on target to start operations next year.

The venture between California's Occidental and Abu Dhabi's Adnoc will process 1 billion cubic feet a day of sour gas into 500 million cubic feet of gas after stripping it from sulfur. Occidental holds a 40 per cent stake in a 30-year contract to develop the technologically challenging field.

“This project has just hit the 90 per cent milestone on construction and we hope to complete operations and start up in 2014,” said Willie Chiang, the executive vice president of operations at Occidental Petroleum.

This year, the government awarded Royal Dutch Shell a 40 per cent stake in the “ultra-sour” Bab gas project that is forecast to produce 520 million cubic feet per day of network gas by 2020, after impurities have been stripped.

The Government is taking on expensive gas projects to feed rising power demand and industries as part of the efforts to free up oil for export and build a gas-fed manufacturing base that diversifies income away from oil. Gas is also re-injected into oilfields to maintain oil-well pressure.