Petrofac Awarded Strasshof Development FEED

Petrofac, the international oil & gas facilities service provider, has been awarded a US$5 million contract by OMV Austria Exploration & Production GmbH (OMV Austria), a subsidiary of OMV Aktiengesellschaft, to carry out two parallel front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for the development of the Strasshof gas field, near Vienna, Austria.

The project, being executed from Petrofac’s Woking office, is due for completion in early 2007 and is the first time that Petrofac has carried out FEED work on behalf of OMV Austria.  The Strasshof project incorporates the development of the Reyersdorf Dolomite and Perchtoldsdorfer Dolomite fields, first discovered in April 2005.

Petrofac Engineering & Construction will run two parallel FEED studies in order to develop the options for processing the sour gas (3% hydrogen sulphide) from the fields.  The FEED studies will consider two gas processing options, namely sulphur recovery versus acid gas re-injection.  This FEED work also includes the design of a multiphase gathering pipeline network, export pipeline for 1.9 million Nm3/day of gas, condensate/water export pipeline and an acid gas injection pipeline.

Earlier in 2006, Petrofac and OMV Austria signed a master consultancy agreement which enables OMV Austria to draw on Petrofac’s considerable front-end consultancy expertise in the development of oil & gas production and processing facilities.

Mike Cannavina, Petrofac’s business development director, said: “This latest contract is particularly important given the contribution that the development could make to Austrian domestic production. Petrofac is delighted to be involved in such a high profile project.

“The project schedule is demanding but we were able to demonstrate Petrofac’s first class resources and particular expertise in gas processing and gas sweetening.  We have an exceptional team and this contract win is testament to their quality and dedication.”

Mr R. Samhaber, senior vice president at OMV Austria, said: “This project is a significant milestone in our aim of increasing our domestic production by more than 25% to 50,000 boe/d by 2010.  This will reverse Austria’s natural production decline and demonstrate that OMV Austria provides outstanding expertise in management of mature assets.

“In partnership with Petrofac, we also want to set a technical landmark by implementing acid gas injection as an enhanced gas recovery system.  Acid gas injection is common as a disposal method for carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, however, OMV Austria aims to develop this further and increase gas production by sweeping a producing reservoir using injected acid gas.

“This will also be a milestone in environmentally friendly and sustainable sour gas production, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by more than two thirds.”