Project Dolphin (page 1 of 3)

WWF-EWS: Tell us about your company, and how the name 'Dolphin' originated?

Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh: Dolphin Energy Limited was established in 1999 in Abu Dhabi as a unique strategic energy initiative for the region.

The company's mandate is to construct by 2006 a 48-inch, 400 km-plus pipeline between Qatar and the UAE - and to produce, process and then transport through this pipeline an initial 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

That gas will be needed throughout the UAE to supply future energy needs for the power stations and industrial projects that are in construction or on the drawing-boards. Abu Dhabi's own natural gas reserves are limited - over the decades ahead, the nation therefore requires this reliable long-term source of imported natural gas at competitive rates.

Dolphin Energy is 51 percent owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi through the wholly-owned Mubadala Development Company, and 24.5 percent each by Total of France and Occidental Petroleum of the USA.

As to our name...the story is unusual.

When this great project was still at the concept stage, we needed a "code name" to preserve commercial privacy while the venture was developed. The name chosen was Project Dolphin - we all admired the beauty and intelligence of these excellent creatures. When the time came for the formal company naming, no-one could come up with anything more imaginative!

Which projects are you engaged in, and have you considered their environmental implications?

Our principal venture, the "Dolphin Project" itself, has now reached a most exciting stage.

We have recently signed binding agreements with our initial clients in the UAE for supply of Dolphin gas from Qatar - Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA) and Union Water & Electricity Company (UWEC).

Then in January we made the first awards for construction and equipment to leading international contractors, who are beginning to mobilize for work later this year. The major award was for $1.6 billion to JGC Corporation of Japan - who will build our giant gas compression and processing plant at Ras Laffan in Qatar, an essential stage in the entire natural gas value chain. At Ras Laffan, we will extract large quantities of valuable condensates, LPGs and other valuable by-products.

Shortly, we will award the contract for the laying of the actual Export Pipeline across the Southern Arabian Gulf itself, to landfall at Taweelah in Abu Dhabi.

There are of course profound environmental considerations in both the construction of this large and complex plant, as well as the laying of the export pipeline in shallow Gulf waters.

Our team of health, safety and environmental experts have been working for over two years on policies and procedures that will meet the needs of the situation - and that will, rightly, satisfy the stringent environmental permit requirements of the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR), the environmental authority in Qatar, and of ERWDA, the Abu Dhabi environmental body.

As an example, environmental considerations of great importance to the pipeline have included the precise pipeline route (to avoid coral, sensitive seabird colonies and fish breeding grounds), pipeline laying methods (to minimize local disturbances) and pipeline protection specifications (to ensure maximum strength and resistance to external corrosion or damage.

Our first project to come on stream, the Al Ain to Fujairah gas pipeline, was commissioned last month - and is now supplying some 135 million cubic feet of gas daily to the new power and desalination plant in Fujairah.