A PLAN to tear up ageing oil pipelines to make room for major road expansions has been put on hold, based on the discovery of new offshore reserves last year.
That is because the old pipeline network could be called upon to support additional offshore production from the new reservoir, revealed Southern Municipal Council chairman Bader Al Tamimi.
As a result work has been suspended on expansions of Wali Al Ahad Highway, Al Riffa Avenue and Al Mouaskar Highway, as well as other arteries along which pipelines run.
Meanwhile, a planned relocation of the Riffa Clock Tower has also been put on hold as it is now considered unnecessary.
“The Oil Ministry is planning to use the (old) pipelines as a network for the newly discovered oil, which they expect to start flowing within a few years,” he said.
“It would be costly to build a new oil network knowing how tight budgets are, besides other arrangements.
“We understand the decision and its significance.”
He revealed the roads revamp had been due to start this month based on a time frame drawn up by the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry.
However, he added the Oil Ministry had suspended the handover of land on which pipelines run.
“If the pipelines were removed they would have added much needed space for additional lanes on busy highways and link roads,” said council vice-chairman Abdullatif Mohammed.
“Since that’s not the case now, the ministry needs to re-evaluate routes and find alternative ways to direct traffic smoothly.
“I think the best solution would be ring roads so that traffic does not converge from several directions onto main highways.
“It is a huge setback for the expected road expansions.
“No-one knows when they will start now.
“However, we remain optimistic about the landmark oil and gas discovery and what it means for the country’s economy.”
The existing pipeline network is more than 70 years old and a new pipeline that feeds Bapco with crude oil from Saudi Arabia was launched in November.
However, Bahrain announced last April that it had found an additional 80 billion barrels of tight oil and deep gas reserves in the region of 10 to 20 trillion cubic feet off the southwest coast.
Conservative estimates suggest the new discovery could at least double Bahrain’s current output of around 200,000 barrels of oil per day.
mohammed@gdn.com.bh
&uuid=(email))