|
Saudi Arabia
Master Gas System
The structure of the master gas system--a system of gasgathering
facilities and pipelines that collect associated gas as a by-product
of oil and nonassociated gas--reflected both its original design
and changes made during the latter half of the 1980s. At first
it was anticipated that the master gas system would distribute
and process gas produced in association with crude oil. However,
declining crude oil output in the mid-1980s forced Saudi Aramco
to supplement the system's gas feed by developing the kingdom's
nonassociated gas resources. The current structure of the master
gas system consists of sixty GOSPs in Khurays, As Saffaniyah,
Al Ghawar, and Az Zuluf fields; three gas-processing plants located
at Al Barri, Shadqam, and Al Uthmaniyah; the east-west natural
gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that feeds NGL from Shadqam to Yanbu;
and two gas fraction plants at Yanbu and Al Juaymah. Saudi Aramco
also added about 57 million cubic meters per day of nonassociated
gas-gathering capacity to the master gas system. Furthermore,
it installed facilities capable of producing up to almost 13 million
cubic meters per day from the Abqaiq gas cap to meet peak demand,
and 1.7 million cubic meters per day from the Qatif storage reservoir
for emergency use. The system had the capacity to gather about
170 million cubic meters per day of unprocessed gas.
In 1992 the master gas system could produce about 600,000 bpd
of NGL when operating at full capacity, which included 315,000
bpd of propane, 165,000 bpd of butane, and 120,000 bpd of natural
gas. Saudi Arabia's refineries contributed another 40,000 bpd
of liquid petroleum gas (LPG - propane and butane). The kingdom
was the world's largest LPG exporter with a 30 percent market
share of world seaborne trade in LPG.
Despite the impressive capabilities of the system, it had several
shortcomings. The system lacked sufficient associated gas-gathering
facilities; as a result, substantial amounts of gas were flared
or used in reinjection. Furthermore, there were insufficient processing
plants once the gas was collected. Therefore, only about 113 million
cubic meters per day of a total of nearly 170 million cubic meters
per day of raw gas was processed. Finally, the government's domestic
pricing policy, whereby gas was available to customers at US$0.50
per million British thermal units, yielded insufficient revenues
to finance further gas-processing facilities.
Data as of December 1992
|
