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Regional downstream sector prepares for consolidation

30 December 2024

 

The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region’s midstream and downstream oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors together had one of their best years on record in 2024, with state-owned companies and private players collectively spending close to $38bn on projects.

Saudi Arabia emerged as the biggest regional spender on midstream and downstream projects. To address incremental volumes of gas entering the grid as Saudi Aramco increases its conventional and unconventional gas production, the state enterprise has spent more than $17bn on gas processing and transportation projects this year.

In April 2024, Aramco awarded $7.7bn in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for a project to expand the Fadhili gas plant in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The project is expected to increase the plant’s processing capacity from 2.5 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) to up to 4 billion cf/d.

On 30 June, Aramco awarded 15 lump-sum turnkey contracts for the third expansion phase of the Master Gas System (MGS-3), worth $8.8bn. Then, in August, the company awarded contracts for the remaining two packages of the MGS-3 project, which were worth $1bn. 

Saudi Aramco divided EPC works on the MGS-3 project into 17 packages. The first two packages involve upgrading existing gas compression systems and installing new gas compressors. The 15 other packages relate to laying gas transport pipelines at various locations in the kingdom.

The Master Gas System expansion will increase the size of the network and raise its total capacity by an additional 3.15 billion cf/d by 2028 with the installation of about 4,000 kilometres
of pipelines and 17 new gas compression trains.

Abu Dhabi capex

The UAE has been the second-largest spender on midstream, downstream and chemicals projects in 2024, led by investments from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Taziz – its 60:40 joint venture with industrial holding entity ADQ.

Adnoc’s biggest capital expenditure (capex) was in the form of a $5.5bn EPC contract that it awarded to a consortium of France’s Technip Energies, Japan-based JGC Corporation and Abu Dhabi-owned NMDC Energy to develop a greenfield liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal complex in Ruwais. 

The upcoming Ruwais LNG export terminal will have the capacity to produce about 9.6 million tonnes a year (t/y) of LNG from two processing trains, each of which has a capacity of 4.8 million t/y. When the project is commissioned, Adnoc’s LNG production capacity will more than double to about 15 million t/y.

Adnoc Group subsidiary Adnoc Gas has also advanced a project to expand its sales gas pipeline network across the UAE, which is known as Estidama. The Abu Dhabi-listed company has awarded two EPC packages of the project this year, which together were worth more than $500m. 

Adnoc Gas is expected to award the contract for another Estidama package before the end of 2024 that covers the construction of a pipeline that will provide feedstock from its Habshan gas processing plant to the upcoming Ruwais LNG complex.

Taziz, meanwhile, awarded three EPC contracts totalling $2bn for infrastructure works at the industrial chemicals zone that it is developing in Ruwais Industrial City.

Spending to plateau

Having reached a peak in spending, and with EPC contracts awarded for strategic midstream, downstream and chemicals projects in 2024, the Mena region is set to enter a period of more pragmatic project spending in 2025. However, this does not imply that a slump in project capex is likely, and the region could once again equal the level of contract awards made in 2024.

One of the largest projects that may be awarded in 2025 is the main contract for the North Field West LNG project – the third phase of QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion programme. 

The North Field West project will have an LNG production capacity of 16 million t/y, which is expected to be achieved through two 8 million t/y LNG processing trains, based on the two earlier phases of QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion programme. 

The new project will draw feedstock for LNG production from the western zone of Qatar’s North Field offshore
gas reserve.

Taziz is also on course to make progress with the second expansion phase of its derivatives complex, which will more than double the number of chemicals produced at the industrial hub. The expansion’s centrepiece will be a large-scale steam cracker that will supply feedstocks to the several new chemical plants earmarked for third-party investments.

In Saudi Arabia, there has been speculation that Aramco may be revisiting its investment strategy and execution approach for its strategic liquids-to-chemicals programme. 

The aim of the programme is to derive greater economic value from every barrel of crude produced in the kingdom by converting 4 million barrels a day (b/d) of Aramco’s oil production into high-value petrochemicals and chemicals feedstocks by 2030.

Aramco has divided its liquids-to-chemicals programme into four main projects. It took a major step forward
in September 2023 by selecting US firm KBR, France’s Technip Energies, UK-based Wood Group and Australia- headquartered Worley to provide project management consultancy services for the four different segments of the scheme.

Progress on a programme as big as the liquids-to-chemicals scheme is expected to be measured and laboured. 

While day-to-day the advancement might appear sluggish, Amin Nasser, Aramco’s president and CEO, said earlier in 2024 that the Saudi energy giant is on track to achieve its crude oil-to-chemicals conversion goal by 2030.

“We are on track to achieve our target of 4 million b/d liquids-to-chemicals [conversion capacity] by 2030,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kuwait is in a similar situation with its planned Al-Zour integrated complex upgrade programme (Zicup), which has suffered significant delays in recent years. However, state-owned Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (Kipic), the project’s operator, recently appointed a team to look into the logistics of developing a benzine pipeline as part of the estimated $10bn Zicup scheme.

Although this may be a small step, it does indicate that Kuwait remains determined to achieve its ambition of developing a large-scale petrochemicals facility, which, when integrated with its $16bn Al-Zour refinery, could become one of the biggest integrated refining and petrochemicals complexes in the Mena region.

 

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Indrajit Sen

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