DOHA, Qatar • His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Amir of the State of Qatar, inaugurated the Barzan Gas Plant in a special ceremony held today at Ras Laffan Industrial City.
The Barzan Gas Plant will produce and process natural gas from the North Field to serve the requirements of local power generation and water desalinization. It will also produce associated hydrocarbon products for supply to local refinery and petrochemical industries as well as for export to international markets.
The plant is named after the famed historic Barzan Towers, also known as the Umm Salal Mohammed Fort Towers, which were originally built in the late 19th century.
In his speech at the inauguration ceremony, His Excellency Mr. Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, extended his thanks and appreciation to His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Amir of the State of Qatar, for his unlimited guidance and support of the energy sector, and said: “This is one of the most important energy projects in the State of Qatar, which adds a high and qualitative value in the effort to meet our domestic natural gas needs, and in supporting Qatar’s comprehensive development and economic growth.”
His Excellency Minister Al-Kaabi added: “With the Barzan Plant’s various products, we have achieved our important objective of the optimal exploitation of our resources from the North Field, and provided the energy needed for electricity production and water desalination, in addition to the large development projects in the country, including the facilities for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup and other strategic projects."
Minister Al-Kaabi thanked the executive managements and teams of QatarEnergy, Qatargas and ExxonMobil for their valuable efforts towards delivering this project. His Excellency also expressed pride in the efforts of all teams working on the project and added: “I would like to single out the Qatari youth and project managers and others who have exerted great efforts and gained the knowledge, experience, and skill to become the future leaders of the oil and gas sector. I also would like to thank all our fellow expatriates, to whom we express our appreciation and thanks for their tireless efforts in all our projects to develop the energy sector.”
During construction phase, the project workforce peaked at 30,000 workers on site and achieved an outstanding safety performance, including over 130 million manhours without a Lost Time Incident.
The Barzan Gas Plant is capable of producing almost 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per day for local power generation and water desalination; 2,000 tons of ethane per day as feedstock for the local petrochemicals industry; 1,500 tons per day of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for export to international markets; 30,000 barrels of condensate per day for processing in the Laffan Refinery and export to international markets; and 3,500 tons of sulfur per day for export to international markets.
Qatargas operates the Barzan Gas Plant on behalf of its shareholders: QatarEnergy (93%) and ExxonMobil (7%).
Source: Qatar Energy