Aramco Awards Contracts Worth USD 3.3 Billion for New Gas Facilities

Saudi Aramco has awarded two contracts worth a combined USD 3.3 billion to build and develop a new liquified natural gas (LNG) processing facility inside the kingdom, in what will be a two-phase joint venture between China’s Sinopec and Spain’s Technicas.

Phase 1 will take place over 46 months, and covers the engineering and construction of a distillation complex with a processing capacity of 510,000 barrels of LNG per day, while Phase 2, estimated to take 41 months, includes LNG storage and export facilities.

The state-owned petroleum and natural gas company is spearheading the kingdom’s efforts to become a major player in global gas production, and has boosted its gas investments substantially in the past 20 years. Daily gas processing capacity reached 18 billion cubic feet in 2022, up from just two billion cubic feet in 2000, and Aramco continues to explore more gas fields within its territory in order to meet growing demand for low-cost, low-carbon energy.

In November 2023, the Saudi Minister of Energy announced the discovery of two natural gas fields in the Eastern Province and in the Empty Quarter, with an estimated total flow rate of 34 million cubic feet per day. Alongside Aramco’s overseas investments in seaborne LNG, such as the purchase of a USD 500 million stake in MidOcean Energy in September 2023, these latest contracts represent the kingdom’s continued diversification of its assets away from pure crude.