Haradh GOSP-3 Gets Good Start

HARADH, April 06, 2005 -- Close collaboration between Saudi Aramco organizations and contractors has the new grassroots Haradh GOSP-3 off to a good start.

Ali A. Al-Ajmi, vice president of Project Management; Amin H. Nasser, acting executive director of Southern Area Oil Operations; and executive management from Techint International Construction Corp. recently toured the construction site for a project review, accompanied by the general manager and the manager of Southern Area Projects and the manager of South Ghawar Producing Department.

The project is being developed and built on the successes and lessons learned from its predecessor, Haradh GOSP-2, which was brought on stream in April 2003 just 26 km to the north. This gas-oil separation plant for the Haradh Arabian Light Crude Increment-III will have production capacities of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and 140 million standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of associated gas.

The project also includes installation of a third gas-turbine-driven water injection pump at Haradh GOSP-2 to maintain reservoir pressure, and a seawater supply booster pump at the Hawiyah Central Water Injection Pump Station.

To transport products from Haradh GOSP-3 to the processing facilities at Abqaiq and 'Uthmaniyah, the project calls for the construction of 162 km of crude and gas pipelines and extensions to the existing pipeline systems. Plans also call for more than 152 km of pipelines to transport seawater and produced salt water for reservoir injection.

Al-Ajmi earlier challenged the Project Management team and Techint to meet the ambitious objective of completing the facilities four months ahead of schedule early in the first quarter of 2006. Mario Dell-Acqua, COO of Techint, reiterated Techint's commitment to doing everything possible to meet the challenge.

Saudi Aramco leaders expressed their pleasure at seeing how the project had progressed since mobilizing for construction in September 2004.

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