Essar wins $54-mn project deal from Saudi petro firm

India's leading oil and gas infrastructure major Essar Projects Ltd. has bagged a $54-million (Rs.329 crore) contract from Saudi Arabia's state-run Saudi Aramco to upgrade its crude stabilisation unit at the Abqaiq plant in Shaybah.

"Our maiden EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract from the Saudi national petroleum and natural gas firm will strengthen the presence of our hydrocarbon strategic business unit in the Middle East oil and gas construction market," the city-based company said in a statement here Tuesday.

As one of the world's largest oil fields, Shaybah is a major crude oil production site in the Saudi kingdom, about 40 km north of the Rub' Al-Khali desert.

When set up in the 1990s, it had estimated reserves of 14 billion barrels of crude oil and 25 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The project includes building a crude tank, replacing crude pumps and associated civil works in 29 months.

The company is executing five other hydrocarbon projects in the region.

"The contract testifies our capability to undertake global projects from reputed clients in the region. We will leverage the capabilities gained to enhance our footprint in other Middle East countries," Essar Projects chief executive Amit Gupta said.

The company acquired domain expertise by building a 10-million tonnes per annum greenfield refinery at Vadinar in Jamnagar district of southwest Gujarat, about 350 km from Ahmedabad, and expanding its capacity to 20 million tonnes subsequently.

"We have also learnt to build the supporting infrastructure at Vadinar refinery, including a single buoy mooring (SBM) for crude unloading, a jetty for its product export and a tank farm with capacity to store three million cubic feet of crude and intermediates and a 77 MW captive power plant," Gupta said.

As a global player, the Essar group company provides expertise in oil and gas spanning upstream, mid-stream and downstream, cross country pipelines and terminals for offshore and onshore projects, in core infrastructure such as ports & marine, power and minerals across the Indian sub-continent, Africa, Middle East, South-East Asia and Australia.