Saudi oil giant Aramco has awarded contracts worth more than $25 billion to progress its strategic gas expansion, which targets sales gas production growth of more than 60 per cent by 2030, compared to 2021 levels.

Announcing the contract awards, Aramco said the scope of work includes Phase Two development of the vast Jafurah unconventional gas field as well as Phase Three expansion of Aramco’s Master Gas System, new gas rigs and ongoing capacity maintenance.

It also involves construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines and the expansion of the Jafurah Gas Plant – including construction of gas processing trains, and utilities, sulfur and export facilities, it stated.

According to Aramco, Phase One of the Jafurah development programme, which commenced in November 2021, is progressing as per schedule with initial start-up likely next year during the third quarter.

Aramco expects total overall lifecycle investment at Jafurah to exceed $100 billion and production to reach a sustainable sales gas rate of two billion standard cu ft per day by 2030, in addition to significant volumes of ethane, NGL and condensate.

The oil giant’s Master Gas System is an extensive network of pipelines that connects Aramco’s key gas production and processing sites throughout the kingdom.

The company has awarded 16 contracts, worth a combined total of around $12.4 billion, for Phase Two development at Jafurah. The work will involve construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, expansion of the Jafurah Gas Plant including construction of gas processing trains, and utilities, sulfur and export facilities.

It will also involve construction of the company’s new Riyas Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) fractionation facilities in Jubail – including NGL fractionation trains, and utilities, storage and export facilities – to process NGL received from Jafurah.

According to Aramco, another 15 lumpsum turnkey contracts, worth a combined total of around $8.8 billion, have been awarded to commence Phase Three expansion of the Master Gas System, which delivers natural gas to customers across Saudi Arabia.

The expansion, being conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy, will increase the size of the network and raise its total capacity by an additional 3.15 billion standard cu ft per day by 2028, through the installation of around 4,000 km of pipelines and 17 new gas compression trains.