February 2010 Vol. 237 No. 2

Projects

ConocoPhillips Facing Delay In Middle East Project

ConocoPhillips and Abu Dhabi face delays on a $12 billion sour gas project in the sheikdom amid ongoing uncertainty over how to safely transport toxic material, Dow Jones Newswire reported.

“There is a delay in one of the packages for the sulfur transportation,” an Abu Dhabi-based official said. “The original design was based on a pipeline but now we are considering the rail option.”

A joint venture of ConocoPhillips and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., or Adnoc, originally planned to build the world’s longest sulfur pipeline as part of the project that is vital for energy supply in the United Arab Emirates but failed to attract feasible engineering bids last year. The companies decided to study rail transportation plans instead to take the sulfur from the Shah field over a distance of about 264 kilometers to Ruwais on the Persian Gulf coast via Habshan.