BUILD
Building the Middle East’s first heavy oil development
Over five years, Petrofac led a consortium with Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) to complete the Lower Fars Heavy Oil (LFHO) development – a first for our client, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), and for the Middle East.
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Scope
Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC)
Client
Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)
Lower Fars Heavy Oil Development (LFHO), Kuwait
Lower Fars Heavy Oil Development (LFHO), Kuwait
Lower Fars Heavy Oil Development (LFHO), Kuwait
Hydrocarbons were introduced in February 2020 and the facility now produces 60,000 bpd. We executed engineering, procurement and construction, start-up and operations and maintenance work for the main central processing facility (CPF), associated infrastructure and production support complex.
Applying ingenuity in engineering and supply chain management over 60-months
Our engineers adapted designs to meet equipment supply limitations, global supply chain complexities and a variety of sub-contracting strategies on a huge site with challenging requirements.
Applying ingenuity in engineering
This included the engineering design of the 900 km-long, unique and complex wet steam distribution network, which provides steam injection to 930 wells. We designed the steam network to address various flow assurance and piping design challenges, and to achieve the required steam qualities, slugging, water hammering, commissioning and start-up requirements.
Technical expertise ensures equipment reliability optimisation
Our asset management and maintenance experts developed and populated a comprehensive, preventative Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS), to assure asset integrity and optimise equipment reliability. In just four months we successfully implemented digital data scraping for 1.5 million technical engineering attributes, from more than 165,000 pieces of maintainable equipment, and used machine learning to build a comprehensive and reliable asset register which will underpin performance in the years to come.
Pioneering development provides valuable insights
Although the plant has already been handed over to KOC, Petrofac together with CCC continues to provide an integrated team at the site to undertake operations and maintenance activities.
As the first project of its kind in the Middle East, LFHO has provided valuable insights and learnings which will play a pivotal role in future heavy oil projects in the region and elsewhere.