Dolphin starts flowing
Supplies to grow to two billion cubic feet a day in early 2008
Posted: 02 July 2007
 Send this article
 Print this article
Dolphin Energy will begin receiving gas supplies from the mammoth North Field in Qatar this summer and production will grow gradually to peak at two billion standard cubic feet per day in early 2008, according to CEO Ahmed Al Sayegh.
 He said Dolphin - jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum and the UAE’s Mubadala - has completed all infrastructure and production facilities, including a sub-sea pipeline connecting Qatar to Abu Dhabi .
He said initial gas quantities had been supplied by QP to Dolphin’s processing facility in Taweelah near Abu Dhabi .
“In mid 2007, we are on the cusp of production, processing and supply to customers – and the fulfillment of our mission, through the completion of every stage in the Dolphin value chain,” he wrote in Dolphin’s latest bulletin.
“In 2006 we finished the construction of our export pipeline, which runs 364 kilometres through Qatari-UAE waters from Ras Laffan north of Doha to Taweelah on the Abu Dhabi coast. We also installed our two production platforms offshore Qatar and the sea lines linking them to Ras Laffan, as well as our receiving and monitoring facilities at Taweelah.
“In January, we completed all the 12 gas producing wells on our first production platform. Then, in March, we received initial gas from QP, primarily to assist us with commissioning and start up.
“Shortly we shall complete the giant, complex Dolphin Gas Processing Plant in Ras Laffan. The first Dolphin gas produced from our own wells and processed in our own plant will then flow to the UAE during the summer.
“The pace of our progress has been unrelenting. In the coming months, we must make every effort to meet our targets, as we gradually ramp up production – with the aim of achieving full initial pipeline throughput of two billion scf/ day early next year.”
He said Dolphin would then begin supplying gas to Oman , which had been providing nearly 135 million cubic feet a day to the UAE via its Al Ain-Fujairah pipeline.
“We shall soon be reversing the flow, supplying up to 200 million cubic feet a day to Oman to assist with the sultanate’s own energy development programme. This
is a historic moment for Dolphin Energy.”
In March, Dolphin announced it had begun testing its gas receiving and distribution facilities at Taweelah by taking early refined gas from Qatar through a special agreement with the government-owned QP. These initial gas quantities were supplied by landline to one of Dolphin’s major customers, the Dubai Supply Authority in Jebel Ali.
“We were pleased to receive these early quantities of up to 400 million standard cubic feet of refined natural gas per day from QP,” Al Sayegh said. “We used the QP gas primarily to commission the pipeline and to start up our Taweelah operations in timely fashion.
“By undertaking this early commissioning programme, many weeks of such work will no longer be required when we start producing and processing our own gas in mid summer.” |
