$7 Billion to Advance the Al-Durrah Field
Walid Mansour: Joint Operations has granted engineering firms additional time to prepare new bids under a revised tender for project management consulting (PMC) services for the multi-billion-dollar project to develop the Darain gas field facilities, according to MEED. MEED recently reported that Joint Operations had initiated a revised tender process to appoint a consultant for engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) supervision for the project, which aims to produce gas from the offshore Darain field. Joint Operations is equally owned by Saudi Aramco’s Gulf Operations Company and the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
Joint Operations has divided the engineering, procurement, and construction scope of work for the Darain gas production project into four main packages, comprising three offshore packages and one onshore package. According to MEED, Joint Operations recently awarded contracts for all four EPC packages, with a total value approaching $7 billion. The general scope of the tender involves providing project management consulting services for the EPC works related to the development of gas facilities in the Darain field. Joint Operations originally launched the tender for project management consulting services on September 29 of last year, with engineering firms submitting their bids on January 19 of this year, as MEED previously reported.
Following the submission of bids, Joint Operations held discussions with bidders regarding contract terms and pricing, according to sources cited by the magazine. Ultimately, Joint Operations decided to re-tender the project management consulting services contract with a revised scope of work, a move MEED revealed in late July. Joint Operations had initially set August 17 as the deadline for submitting bids for the revised tender for project management consulting services for the Darain gas field facilities development project.
According to MEED, Joint Operations has extended the bid submission deadline by three weeks, making it September 7. Among the companies believed to have been invited to participate in the revised tender for project management consulting services are US-based Fluor and KBR, French Technip Energies, UK-based Wood, and Australian Worley. In addition to these firms, the list of companies that submitted bids in the first round of the tender on January 19 included KEC, headquartered in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Spanish company Tecnicas Reunidas.
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are moving forward with their joint plan to produce one billion cubic feet of gas daily from the Darain field. The two countries have been producing oil from the divided zone since at least the 1950s, primarily from the onshore Wafra field and the offshore Khafji field. With the growing need to increase natural gas production, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are working to exploit the offshore Darain field, which is believed to be the only gas field in the divided zone. The Darain gas field was discovered in 1965, with estimated reserves of approximately 20 trillion cubic meters of gas and 310 million barrels of oil.
