Jacobs Engineering Wins Contract for Four-Train Sulfur Recovery Plant for Saudi Aramco

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Pasadena, California) has secured a contract from state-owned Saudi Aramco (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) to provide basic engineering for four sulfur recovery units as part of the latter's $2.3 billion Wasit Gas Development program in Saudi Arabia.

Each recovery unit will have a capacity of 1,200 tons per day. Jacobs will license its proprietary EuroClaus sulfur recovery and sulfur degassing technologies for the project. The EuroClaus process is developed to recover elemental sulfur from gases containing hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and yields up to 99.7% of overall sulfur recovery.

The contract will be executed from Jacobs' office in Calgary, Alberta. Further details on the terms of the contract, including the value of the deal, were not disclosed.

The Wasit Gas Development program is part of Saudi Aramco's initiative, announced in 2006, to boost gas supplies to Saudi Arabia by adding 50 trillion cubic feet of non-associated gas reserves to the country's existing portfolio of 263 trillion cubic feet of associated and non-associated gas reserves and 260 billion barrels of oil reserves through new discoveries by 2016.

The Wasit project envisages production and processing of 2.5 billion standard cubic feet per day of gas from the Hasbah and Arabiyah offshore non-associated sour gas fields. In addition to gas-processing facilities, the project entails development of two offshore gas platforms, a tie-in platform to handle 1.2 billion cubic feet per day of gas, pipelines, and subsea power and communication links.

The facility would be between the port of Jubail and the Khursaniyah oilfield. Gas output from the complex will cater to the demands of power-generating stations and industrial units in Saudi Arabia.

Canadian engineering and construction firm, SNC-Lavalin Group Incorporated (TSX:SNC) (Montreal, Quebec), is executing the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the project, in addition to providing project management services under a five-year contract awarded by Saudi Aramco in September 2009. SNC-Lavalin expects to conclude FEED activities by the second half of this year and preliminary engineering and design work by the first quarter of 2011.

Saudi Aramco is expected to invite bids for the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project in the second quarter of this year. Construction of the facility is planned to be completed by December 2013, with commercial operations scheduled to commence in February 2014.

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