Project Profile
Value: Undisclosed
Location: north of the industrial hub of Ruwais, UAE
Reserves: 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
Area: unknown
Start-up Year: 2017
Abu Dhabi\'s Ghasha field claimed by three overlapping concessions holds 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,which have been left undeveloped. Ghasha is located just north of the industrial hub of Ruwais.
According to a 2003 estimate by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Ghasha held 1.1 billion barrels of ultimately recoverable oil in addition to the gas. But a couple of factors make Ghasha challenging.
It falls simultaneously under the concession areas of Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (Adma-Opco), the primary offshore oil joint venture; Zakum Development Company, the ExxonMobil-led venture to boost Upper Zakum\'s output with artificial islands; and Abu Dhabi Oil Company, a Japanese-UAE joint venture.
Ghasha is also considered delicate from an environmental viewpoint. Turtles and sea cows circle waters as shallow as 3 to 30 metres. On April 2015, Occidental Petroleum won a contract from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) to help evaluate the Ghasha oilfield.
Oxy would cooperate on a programme that would spend up to US$500 million to run 3D seismic surveys, drilling appraisal wells and engineering studies to evaluate development prospects of the field by 2017. Adnoc holds a 70% share in the fields development venture, while Occidental holds 30%.
Technical bids were submitted in mid-March for the PMC contract for the joint development of non-associated sour gas reserves at the shallow-water Hail and Ghasha fields.
Initiated in mid-2016, early contracting on the scheme has been being handled by Al-Hosn Gas, a joint venture (JV) between ADNOC and US-based Oxy which developed the emirate’s maiden sour gas development at the onshore Shah field.
The scheme was successfully completed in 2015 at a cost of US$10 billion and is currently being readied for expansion by the same developer partnership.
The American firm signalled its intention to deepen and extend involvement in Abu Dhabi’s nascent unconventional gas industry by signing a five-year deal with ADNOC in early 2015 to carry out technical studies on the Hail and Ghasha fields with a view to development of the resources.
Operators:
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC): Operator with 70% interest
Occidental Petroleum: 30% interest
Contractors:
KBR: FEED contract
Seabed Geosolutions: Order to conduct a shallow water seabed survey. The survey will take around 12 months and has a value of around US$125 million