Baker Hughes Bags Order for Aramco's Jafurah Field

Baker Hughes has secured an order from Spanish contractor Tecnicas Reunidas for six gas compression trains and six propane compressors.

The order, booked in the fourth quarter of 2024, is for the third expansion phase of Saudi Aramco’s Jafurah gas field in Saudi Arabia, Baker Hughes said in a news release. The financial details were not disclosed.

Baker Hughes said it will supply electric motor driven compression solutions, leveraging its recently expanded Damman Center in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

The order adds to Baker Hughes’ long-standing partnership with Aramco, which includes the supply of compression solutions for the Haradh and Hawiyah gas plants, the first phase of the Jafurah gas plant and gas compression facilities, and more recently, equipment for the third phase of Saudi Arabia’s Master Gas System project, the company said.

Aramco in February 2020 announced regulatory approval of the development of the Jafurah unconventional gas field in the Eastern Province.

Covering an area of approximately 6563.7 square miles (17,000 square kilometers) and containing an estimated 200 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas (consisting of condensates and natural gas liquids), the Jafurah gas field is the largest liquid-rich shale gas play in the Middle East, according to Aramco’s website. Jafurah is expected to "play a key role in the energy transition” and to provide a number of valuable feedstocks for the downstream petrochemicals industry.

“Gas continues to serve as a vital source of reliable, abundant and lower-carbon energy,” Ganesh Ramaswamy, executive vice president of Industrial and Energy Technology at Baker Hughes, said. “Our advanced gas compression technology will enable efficient and reliable production from the Jafurah field, further supporting Aramco’s vision and contributing to Saudi Arabia's energy development”.

The company expects the field’s production to reach approximately 2.2 billion standard cubic feet per day of sales gas by 2036, with an associated approximately 425 million standard cubic feet per day of ethane.

Aramco also expects the field to produce approximately 550,000 barrels per day of gas liquids and condensates.

In November 2021, Aramco awarded subsurface and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts worth $10 billion at Jafurah, with capital expenditure expected to reach $68 billion over the first 10 years of development.

Aramco awarded 16 subsurface and EPC contracts for the Jafurah Gas Plant and gas compression facilities, as well as infrastructure and related surface facilities. The contracts were awarded to domestic and international service companies and involve several projects to enable development of subsurface and surface components of the Jafurah program, according to an earlier news release.

In June 2024, the company awarded 16 contracts worth a combined total of around $12.4 billion for phase two development at Jafurah. The work will involve construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, expansion of the Jafurah Gas Plant including construction of gas processing trains, and utilities, sulfur and export facilities. It will also involve the construction of the company’s new Riyas natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation facilities in Jubail, which include NGL fractionation trains, and utilities, storage and export facilities, to process NGL received from Jafurah.

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