Gulf Construction Online - JGC’s Bahrain projects set to go on stream

Contractors

The Banagas CGP III will treat 350 mmscfd of unprocessed associated gas.

JGC’s Bahrain projects set to go on stream

The leading Japanese EPC contractor is poised to see the start-up of its key projects including the Banagas Central Gas Plant Three.

01 March 2019

JGC Corporation, one of the leading engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors in the Middle East with an order book worth billions of dollars, says commercial operations are set to start soon at the Banagas Central Gas Plant Three (CGP-III) in Bahrain, following completion of the commissioning works.

The $355-million Central Gas Plant Three (CGP-III) is being built as part of an expansion at Bahrain National Gas Expansion Company (BNGEC) to treat 350 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of unprocessed associated gas.

This project involved construction of a plant for recovering high-value-added petroleum constituents (LPG and naphtha) contained in petroleum-entrained gas which have not been recovered in the past.

The second part of the expansion involves installation of new field pipelines and expansion of the Sitra storage facility.

JGC Gulf International, a subsidiary of the Japanese major, is responsible for carrying out the $99-million pipelines and storage expansion project, commissioning works of which have recently commenced.

This project is spearheaded by BNGEC, which is operated and managed by Bahrain National Gas Company (Banagas).

The scope of the works at CGP III included setting up of facilities for acid gas removal, dehydration, natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery, and treating propane (C3) and butane (C4), as well as utilities (water, air, nitrogen and hot oil) and offsites. The units will extract LPG products for exports from associated gas.

For the plant, the residue gas compressor was fabricated by Siemens of Germany, the turbo expander by Cryostar (France), and the major static equipment by Wooyang HC (Korea). Wooyang also fabricated the amine absorber/regenerator, de-ethaniser, LPG splitter and de-propaniser.

For the Sitra tank and pipeline project, the storage tanks were made by Felguera IHI (Spain); propane compressors by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Company (Japan); propane and butane pump by Weir Gabbioneta (Italy); instrument air (IA) compressors and dryer units by Gardner Denver (South Korea); 38-m-high warm flare by John Zink Hamworthy Combustion (Italy); fire water pumps by SPP (UK); and fire protection system by Solas Marine Services, Bahrain.

The major civil works of the two projects were undertaken by Mechanical Contracting & Services Company (MCSC) of Bahrain, says JGC Gulf.

The scope of the work for the field pipelines and Sitra storage expansion project included providing EPC services for the storage facilities (comprising LPG storage tanks and chiller unit) and pipelines.

The expansion project provided an additional 100,000-barrel-capacity tank for butane and a 200,000-barrel-capacity tank for propane, and a new Train-Three LPG refrigeration unit.

For the pipelines section, JGC Gulf designed and built a new associated gas/refinery off-gas gathering and pipeline system from the nine existing TP (transportation process) compressor stations to CGP-III. The residue gas stream produced from CGP-III is being piped to the existing headers for re-injection. It then connects the naphtha product outlet from CGP-III to the existing pipeline to Bapco. The work also involved designing and building a new 21-km butane pipeline to the Sitra storage and export facility.

Being a brownfield project, the main challenges associated with the project were ensuring safety and timely coordination, according to JGC sources. As most of the pipeline construction work was executed outside the plant site, close coordination was required with the client and other parties such as Bapco, Tatweer Petroleum, existing Banagas facilities and the government authorities concerned.

For the project, MCSC executed the general civil, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation works, while Felguera of Spain and Bahrain’s Ramsis fabricated the storage tanks. Bahrain-based Al Hassanain undertook the land reclamation, and Al Ahlia Contracting Company, also of Bahrain, built the Electricity Distribution Directorate (EDD) building. For the reclamation works, the bund-type of construction technique was used.

Among other major contract wins, JGC secured a major lump-sum turnkey contract from Saudi Aramco for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services associated with the Jazan Refinery and Terminal in the southeast area of Saudi Arabia. JGC is responsible for the EPC work for the naphtha and aromatics complex.

JGC was chosen for the project because of its robust history of successful project execution in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in particular, as well as its superior engineering technology and cost competitiveness, says a spokesman.

JGC Corporation has been developing its engineering business in Saudi Arabia for more than 50 years since 1968.