Petrofac Secures In Salah Gas Compression Project

Petrofac, the international oil & gas facilities service provider, has been awarded a US$600 million lump-sum engineering, procurement and construction contract by In Salah Gas (ISG), an association between Sonatrach (35%), BP (33%) and Statoil (32%) to develop and market gas from the District 3 region in the central Sahara area of Algeria.  Petrofac’s scope of work includes the design and installation of additional field compression facilities at each of the three northern fields of REG, TEG and Krechba, in order to maintain plateau production rates of 9 billion cubic metres per year beyond 2009.

Scheduled for phased completion during 2009 and 2010, the objective of the project is to maintain gas production at plateau levels by reducing the pressure at the wellheads and compressing the gas to the required inlet pressure to the existing facilities.  The facilities at TEG and REG will be almost identical with two trains of single stage compression at each site, using gas turbines to drive the compressors.  The Krechba facility will consist of a single train of compression driven by an electric motor with additional power requirements being met by installing a third gas turbine generator.  The project will also include tie-ins to the existing facilities at all three locations.

Commenting on the award, Maroun Semaan, Chief Executive, Petrofac Engineering & Construction, said: “The award of the In Salah Gas Compression project is a major accomplishment and I am delighted that we are now firmly back in the Algeria market.  This is Petrofac’s first project in the south western region of Algeria where significant future work will be undertaken by Sonatrach and its various foreign partner associations including the future development by ISG of the southern In Salah fields.”