ABB Awarded $490 Million Contract In Algeria

The thirst for energy continues to push companies to exploit oil and gas reserves in more challenging areas of the world.

The El Merk fields being developed by the Sonatrach/Anadarko (Contracting Authority) and partners in the Algerian Sahara desert are a good example.

The El Merk fields are located 300 km southeast of Hassi Messaoud, a remote, harsh desert location in the Berkine Basin where the terrain is mainly large interlocking sand dunes. The remote location and challenging environmental conditions pose challenges for ABB, charged with providing the offsite facilities for the project. Over the course of the project, ABB will supply some 900 km of trunkline and flowlines and install about 600 km of them.

The oil and gas fields being developed are located in Block 208 which contains four fields - EKT, EMN, EME and EMK and Block 405a which contains the MLSE field and is being developed as unitized production with the EMK field. Within each field in Block 208, production will be from three different reservoirs, namely the TAGI oil reservoir and the RKF and Strunian gas-condensate reservoirs. Block 208 is located 90 km south of the Sonatrach/Anadarko-operated Hassi Berkine South (HBNS) oil field.

The El Merk central processing facility will be the hub for processing oil, condensate, and associated gas from the four fields within Block 208 and adjacent blocks 405a and 403a/404.

Natural gas liquids will be transported from Hassi Berkine facilities (B404/403a) for fractionation. The development plan for exploiting the reserves is to produce stabilized oil, stabilized condensate, and LPG for export.

The nominal capacities of the project are: two 65,000-bpd (each) oil/condensate processing trains; a single 600 MMscf/d NGL recovery train; water-injection facilities for 155,000 bpd; and gas-injection facilities for 500 MMscf/d.

The nominal peak export rates (including the NGL production from blocks 404/403a) are: 90,000 bpd of oil, 36,000 bpd of condensate and 35,000 bpd of LPG.

The accompanying map indicates the geographical location of the development and illustrates its position with respect to the adjacent blocks.

The table below summarizes the breakdown of contracts involved in the development.

*ABB’s contract covers Lots 3 and 4 that are combined and designated as the Offsite Facilities Package.

Offsite Facilities
The Offsite Facilities contract packages awarded to ABB cover the design, procurement and installation, construction, commissioning and start-up of the field gathering stations, gas distribution manifolds, well sites and 900 km of flowline and trunkline installations.

The field gathering stations being provided will include valved manifolds to combine flow from individual wells for production gathering and well testing using multi-phase flow meters. The manifolds will also distribute lift gas and dilution water to the TAGI oil-producing wells. In addition, at certain field gathering stations, water injection/dilution water pumping and filtration facilities will be provided. All field gathering stations will be supplied with 30 kV of power. Distribution system and chemical injection facilities will be installed at each respective station for both production and water-injection systems.