Riyadh • State oil firm Saudi Aramco said the deadline for its Khursaniyah project to add 500,000 barrels per day of crude had not been pushed back and was originally scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2007. An Aramco spokesman said a June, 2007 deadline was for water-injection facilities and not for the whole project.

On Thursday, media agencies reported that Saudi Aramco said it expected to complete the project in the fourth quarter and that the firm had said last year it would be completed in June 2007. “There has been no change in the Khursaniyah schedule and the programme is progressing as planned.

The water-injection facilities are due to start up in June, but the rest of the Khursaniyah facilities are scheduled for completion in December as per the original plan,” the Aramco spokesman added.

The project includes oil production facilities that will produce 500,000 bpd of Arabian Light crude from three fields as well as a gas plant that will process 1 billion cubic feet per day of associated gas and 80,000 bpd of hydrocarbon condensate.