OREANDA-NEWS. State-owned Saudi Aramco's 2.5bn ft3/d (70.8mn m3/d) Fadhili non-associated gas processing plant in eastern Saudi Arabia will come on stream by the end of 2019, the company's chief executive Amin Nasser said today.

The plant, which is being built at a cost of over 50bn Saudi riyals ($13.3bn), will process 2bn ft3/d of gas from the offshore Hisbah field, and 500mn ft3/d from the onshore Kharsaniya gas field.

Fadhili will produce 1.5bn ft?/d of processed sales gas, and an additional 470mn ft3/d of processed gas that will operate a nearby 1,100 MW electricity cogeneration plant.

Saudi Aramco awarded the four last construction contracts for the completion of the Fadhili gas project today. They include building extraction facilities at Hisbah, pipelines linking Fadhili with demand centres, electricity and steam co-generation facilities and residential facilities.

Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Khalid al-Falih, told Argus earlier this year that the 2.5bn ft3/d Wasit non-associated gas plant would displace from direct burning around 300,000 b/d of oil equivalent (boe/d). Saudi Arabia burns around 800,000 b/d of crude for power generation during the peak summer months. Aramco earlier this year said Wasit would be running at full nameplate capacity by the end of June, but there has been no confirmation that this has happened.