Saudi Aramco began construction on two major projects: the Khursaniyah oil and gas programme and the Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) recovery programme in September 2005.

The Khursaniyah oil and gas programme will develop oil and gas production facilities for the onshore Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah oil fields near Jubail Industrial City in the Eastern Province, with daily capacity reaching 500,000 barrels of crude oil by December 2007.

The Hawiyah NGL recovery programme will produce an additional 310,000 barrels of ethane and NGL products a day through the Hawiyah NGL Plant near the Ghawar Field and the Ju’aymah Gas Fractionation Plant near Ras Tanura (this is also undergoing expansion); this project will be ready for production in early 2008.

The NGL plant will process an additional one billion standard cubic feet a day of natural gas and 80,000bpd of hydrocarbon condensate. In addition, the programme will install central utilities, including two cogeneration units each with a capacity of 150MW as well as water treatment and steam generation facilities to serve Khursaniyah Producing Facilities (KPF) and Khursaniyah Gas Plant (KGP). KPF and KGP are the heart of the Khursaniyah programme.