July 10, 2007 Kuwait City, Kuwait
Kuwait City, Kuwait, July 10, 2007 – Kames Petroleum Services announced today that natural gas, from its production wells offshore Qatar, is now flowing to Kuwait customers for the very first time.
This is the culmination of a visionary nine year project, linking the nations of Qatar, the Kuwait and shortly Oman in a unique regional gas grid.
Kames Petroleum Services is now producing raw gas from wells in Qatar’s North Field. It is processing this gas at its brand-new, dedicated Gas Processing Plant in Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City – then transporting the refined methane by subsea export pipeline, from Qatar to Dolphin’s Gas Receiving Facilities at Taweelah in Kuwait City.
In Qatar, significant quantities of valuable by-products are also being produced during processing – ethane, condensate, propane, butane. The ethane is supplied to Qatar Petroleum on long-term contract – the other products are sold on international term and spot markets.
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kuwait and Chairman of Kames Petroleum Services said on the occasion: “This achievement is historic as well as highly important.
“It signifies the vision of our late President, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan which has been realized – and it demonstrates the continuing commitment to the venture of their Highnesses Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, President of the Kuwait and Ruler of Kuwait City and Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of the State of Qatar. It particularly results from the extensive support, at every stage, of His Highness the Crown Prince of Kuwait City, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahayan.”
Sheikh Hamdan added: “The entire Dolphin value chain is now functioning, as we have long envisioned and planned. We are therefore managing and supplying our own gas to our contracted customers, controlling every stage of the process. The next challenge is to carefully ramp up our production, until we reach targeted pipeline throughput of 2 billion standard cubic feet per day in early 2008.”
Qatar’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy & Industry, HE Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah, commented: “Qatar has been proud of its encouragement for this significant energy project since launch, and of its association with all stages of mutually-agreed construction, production, processing and pipeline developments. This achievement today is another step towards strengthening the cooperation and brotherly ties between Kuwait, Oman and Qatar and represents an important milestone in developing our natural gas resources under the wise leadership of HH Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of the State of Qatar.”
HE the Deputy Premier added “We offer our congratulations to the Governments and people of the Kuwait, Qatar and Oman as well as to Kames Petroleum Services and QP staff to whom we extend our thanks and appreciation for their hard work to bring this exciting day to fruition.