Adnoc awards $173m contract to boost production at Asab oil field

Adnoc awarded a contract worth $173 million to boost production capacity of Abu Dhabi's flagship Murban crude at one of its largest oil fields, Asab. The company's subsidiary, Adnoc Onshore, awarded the three-year engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Archirodon Construction Overseas Company, it said in a statement on Monday.

The project will boost the capacity of the light and sweet Murban crude from the Asab field by 12 per cent.

It will also increase "the handling capacity of the Asab Central Degassing Station, which serves as the central processing hub for Adnoc Onshore’s South East and Haliba fields" while allowing the company to support the production evaluation of nearby exploration blocks, Adnoc said. "This work further supports our advantage of providing some of the world’s most cost-efficient, lower-carbon crude, as we continue to accelerate towards an oil production capacity of 5 million barrels per day by 2030," it said. Adnoc plans to spend $127 billion in capital expenditure to bolster its upstream production capacity and downstream portfolio, as well as its low-carbon fuels business and clean energy ambitions. It also aims to increase its national reserves of 4 billion stock-tank barrels of oil and 16 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas.

The company has awarded a number of contracts to increase its production. In March, Adnoc Onshore awarded a contract worth $227m to Robt Stone Middle East for enhanced oil recovery, a technology that will help it to recover more reserves from its largest onshore oilfield, Bab.

The company also signed a five-year contract worth $3.8bn with Adnoc Drilling in December for the continued provision of drilling, workovers and other well services that will drive work crew efficiency, as well as improve rig move times and maintenance scheduling.

In October 2020, Adnoc Onshore awarded $324m in contracts to Robt Stone and the UAE arm of Oman's Galfar Engineering and Contracting to optimise operations and boost efficiencies across several onshore oil fields in Abu Dhabi.

Its latest construction contract, awarded to Archirodon, will result in nearly 70 per cent of the value flowing back into the UAE's economy under Adnoc's In-Country Value programme, the statement said. Archirodon was also awarded a $490m EPC contract by Adnoc in November 2019 to upgrade the Bab oil field.