The story
The company was founded in 1979 by Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa with the objective of utilizing Bahrain's gas resources, by processing associated gas and refinery off-gas into marketable products. The entire US$100 million project included the construction of four gas compressor stations, a processing plant to recover propane, butane and naphtha, and a storage area at Sitra. In 1980 the first ship to transport gas was the Japanese tanker Yuyo Maru which was loaded with 5,000 tonnes of butane. In 1988 the total capacity of the plant was upgraded from 170 (48.1×105m³) million cubic feet/day to 280 million cubic feet/day (79.3×105m³).
From Wikipedia’s article on Banagas, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4