Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Company (Gasco) is studying the development of an offshore sour gas field and is unlikely to involve foreign firms in early planning,
Middle East Economic Digest (Meed) reported.
Gasco, a unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), is conducting its own study on the potential for the offshore Hail sour gas field, the London-based weekly magazine reported yesterday.
"This is early work but no international contractors are being canvassed, which suggest the initial engineering and design may be done in-house," said an executive close to Gasco, according to
Meed.
"Although the Hail fields fall within the concession of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Operations, development of the project is now expected to come under the remit of Gasco," the magazine added, without citing source.
The field could produce up to 500 million cubic feet a day of sour gas, according to a conservative forecast,
Meed added.
Last month, Adnoc and ConocoPhillips signed a long-expected deal to develop sour gas reserves within the onshore Shah field.
That was one of the largest upstream projects in the past year open to international companies competing for limited access to the Middle East's oil and gas fields.
Sour gas has high levels of potentially deadly hydrogen sulphide, making it tougher, more dangerous and more expensive to produce than conventional gas reserves.
Record oil revenues and a more than five-fold rise in oil prices since 2002 have fuelled economic expansion and rapidly rising demand for gas from both the power sector and the UAE's growing heavy industry.
Gasco said in May the company would invest about $25 billion in gas-processing plans and pipelines as it develops more fields to meet surging demand.
Gasco is 68 per cent owned by Adnoc, 15 percent by each of Royal Dutch Shell and Total, and two per cent by Partex.
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