30 May 2005
Doha: The initial phase of the Dolphin Gas Project, a strategic energy initiative designed to supply large quantities of natural gas from offshore Qatar to the UAE for 25 years starting in 2006, involves processing and transportation by pipeline of up to 3.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of processed 'sweet' gas from Qatar's North Field, to customers in the UAE.

The project is the first venture of Dolphin Energy Limited, a development company established in Abu Dhabi to implement the Dolphin Gas Project, and to undertake other important energy-related developments such as the Al Ain-Fujairah Gas Pipeline.

The mandate of Dolphin Energy is to produce, supply and transport natural gas from a dedicated section of Qatar's North Field to customers in the UAE.

The linking pipeline will be over 370kms in length, and 48 inches in diameter. The costs of the complex upstream gas gathering and processing plant in Qatar's Ras Laffan and the overall investment in the Dolphin Gas Project makes it one of the largest energy-related ventures ever undertaken in the Middle East.

The shareholders of Dolphin Energy Limited, include Mudabala Development Company, fully owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi with 51 per cent stake, Total of France with 24.5 per cent and Occidental Petroleum of the USA with 24.5 per cent.

Although Abu Dhabi possesses the fourth-largest gas reserves in the world, a major portion of these reserves has already been allocated to essential projects. These include future supply of gas to power and water plants-as well as gas re-injection programs for the oilfields, to maintain reservoir pressure for optimum production.

Hence Abu Dhabi's - and potentially Oman's - requirement for a reliable, long-term source of imported natural gas.

Dolphin Energy entered the business of gas supply in January 2004, with the commissioning of its natural gas pipeline that connects Al Ain with the UAE East Coast Emirate of Fujairah. This 24-inch, 182-km pipeline supplies gas to the power and desalination plants in Fujairah of the Union Water and Electricity Company (UWEC).

Initially all the gas being supplied to UWEC comes from Oman and is delivered via a tie-in on the UAE-Oman border near Al Ain.

An average of 135 million cubic feet of gas per day is currently being supplied to Dolphin from Oman Oil Company, for between three and a half and five years.

After 2006, when Dolphin's new export pipeline from Qatar is operating, Qatar natural gas will reach Fujeirah through existing land lines to Al Ain-and thereafter via the new Dolphin link.

© The Peninsula 2005