Qatar’s state-owned petroleum company QatarEnergy has commenced operations at the Barzan gas plant, located in the Ras Laffan Industrial City.
The gas plant was inaugurated by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in a special ceremony.
The Barzan project is intended to produce and process gas from Qatar’s North Field development, to address the needs of local power generation and water desalinization.
North Field is said to be the world’s biggest non-associated gas field, holding recoverable reserves estimated to be at 900 trillion cubic feet.
The project will also produce associated hydrocarbon products to cater the needs of local refinery and petrochemical industries, and export to global markets.
QatarEnergy president and CEO Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi 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.”
“With the Barzan Plant’s various products, we have achieved our important objective of the optimal exploitation of our resources from the North Field.
“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.”
QatarEnergy said that Barzan Gas Plant project has created 30,000 jobs on site during its peak construction phase, with an outstanding safety performance.
The gas plant has been designed to producing around 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per day for local power generation and water desalination.
It will also produce 2,000 tonnes of ethane per day as feedstock for the local petrochemicals industry, and 1,500 tonnes per day of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for export to global markets.
In addition, the plant is capable of supplying 30,000 barrels of condensate per day for processing at Laffan Refinery and export to global markets, alongside 3,500 tonnes of sulphur per day.
Qatargas is the operator of Barzan Gas Plant, in which QatarEnergy owns a majority stake of 93% and ExxonMobil owns a minority stake of 7%.
