BONATTI HAS BEEN awarded a US$149.7mn contract to construct the export pipelines for the Sonatrach-Anadarko Association El Merk processing hub project in Algeria. The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract involves the construction of three pipelines from the El Merk Central Production Facility.
These comprise of an oil line to the Berkine Basin Central Storage Facility to connect to the crude processing facilities at Houd El Hamra and separate condensate and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) pipelines to connect into the Sonatrach Transportation LPG and Condensate pipeline facilities at Gassi Touil.
The contract will run over a period of 24 months.
Anadarko and its partner, state-owned Algerian oil and gas giant Sonatrach, are developing El Merk to come onstream in late 2011, with a capacity to produce 135,000 bpd of crude, 150,000 bpd of condensate, and 30,000 bpd of LPG.
The Bonatti Group has also acquired two contracts for the construction of oil and gas plants in Saudi Arabia for Saudi Aramco.
The two projects form part of a vast project to increase the efficiency of production and the environmental efficiency of the main Saudi Aramco plants.
The first project involves constructing an upgrade flare system at the Uthmaniyah and Shedgum gas plants, for a value of US$30mn plus US$15mn in equipment that Saudi Aramco will purchase separately. The contract consists of the construction of a plant for the recovery and treatment of residual gasses produced in the plants of Uthmaniyah and Shedgum and currently burned in the atmosphere.
When the project is complete, the 'hot torch' will be extinguished and, in addition to recovering the gasses, this will eliminate the atmospheric pollution due to their combustion. Bonatti will utilise its subsidiary, Carlo Gavazzi Arabia, which specialises in electro-instrumental installations.
The second contract is worth around US$180mn and is for the upgrade of the Abu Ali Plant project.
The project will bring the production of the Abu Ali complex up to 300,000 barrels a day and will see the radical modernisation and expansion (a whole new construction in fact) of the plant for treatment and separation of crude oil at Abu Ali.
The plant, located in southern Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf coast has great strategic value for Saudi Aramco because it is the main collection point and first treatment onshore for the crude that comes from the dozens of offshore platforms in the Safanya oil field, the largest oil field of its kind in the world.
The contract requires Bonatti to replace obsolete equipment, double the lines of production, separation and treatment of the oil products and to construct a new operations control room.
