11. McDermott
McDermott International has won a large contract from an upstream oil and gas operator for a project offshore in the Middle East. The scope includes engineering, procurement, fabrication, transportation and installation of offshore pipelines. Engineering and offshore mobilisation of McDermott’s in-house vessels has commenced for this assignment, with project completion expected by the end of 2016.
Linh Austin, VP – Middle East, said: “The nature of this fast-track project was ideally suited to our vertically integrated capabilities involving our engineering, project management and procurement teams based in Dubai, as well as our marine assets in the region.”
McDermott International has also been awarded a lump-sum contract by Saudi Aramco for brownfield work in various offshore fields in Saudi Arabia. The package of engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) projects that make up the contract represent the largest single award for McDermott’s Middle East Area operations in company history. Work is expected to be executed through Q2 2018. The award follows the June 2015 signing of a second long term agreement (LTA) between McDermott and Saudi Aramco for EPCI opportunities in various fields offshore Saudi Arabia.
12. JGC Group
Japanese engineering firm JGC won a $355mn contract in Q1 2016 to design and build a mid-sized gas plant for Bahrain National Gas. The facility will recover liquefied petroleum gas and naphtha from associated gases released when extracting crude oil, ready for export. The plant, slated for completion by September 2018, will be located 20km south of Manama and have a daily processing capacity of 350mn cubic feet. JGC beat competitors Technip and US-based CB&I to win the contract.
JGC is pursuing smaller projects in the Middle East and Southeast Asia as below par crude oil prices dampen demand for large oil- and gas-related facilities.
In Q3 2015, JGC bagged a reported $200mn contract from Saudi Aramco for the construction of shale gas processing facilities, wellheads and gas pipelines in northwest Saudi Arabia as part of Aramco’s mega project, System A. The gas-gathering facility increased its capacity to 66mn scfd (standard cubic feet per day) from 50mn scfd when the project was originally tendered.
13. CB&I
Chicago Bridge & Iron company (CB&I) has been awarded a contract worth approximately $60mn by the Zakum Development Company, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for the refurbishment of two storage oil tanks on Zirku Island, located about 25km northwest of Abu Dhabi.
Since Q3 2014, CB&I had already been working for ADMA-OPCO, another ADNOC subisidiary, as part of a $90mn contract to conduct a major overhaul of five crude oil storage tanks on Das Island, ADMA-OPCO’s main industrial base in the UAE.
On the downstream side, the joint venture between CB&I and Taiwan’s CTCI Corporation was awarded a $2.8bn contract for the Liwa Plastics project in Sohar, Oman, late last year. The deal was signed with Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) and will see the JV build the steam cracker and associated utilities, including a grassroots 880-ktpa ethylene plant, pygas unit and MTBE unit. CB&I’s scope of work also includes the construction of cryogenic and atmospheric storage tanks and pipe spool fabrication. The cracker will use CB&I’s SRT cracking heaters, and its recovery section design, which features low-pressure separation and mixed refrigeration.
14. Technip
French multi-national construction major Technip has announced strong financial results for the first quarter of 2016, earning $3.13bn in revenues.
Since late 2014, Technip has been working on a contract to provide project management consultancy (PMC) services for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works of the Nasr Phase II Full Field Development project, which serves Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company’s (ADMA-OPCO) strategic objective for the midterm total sustainable production target. Technip PMC is executing the project, which is scheduled to be completed in 2019.
On the downstream side of its business, Technip has been working on a PMC deal alongside Japan’s Unico to upgrade a refinery in Basra, southern Iraq. Last year, Technip also won two contracts for refinery upgrade and expansion in Egypt. The company signed a joint agreement with Midor (Middle East Oil Refinery) for the modernisation and expansion of the 100,000 bbl/d Alexandria refinery in Egypt.
15. CCC
Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), with a geographically diverse portfolio and more than 130,000 employees, has become a frontrunner in tackling the decrease in infrastructure spending by GCC governments that has come on the back of constantly fluctuating oil prices.
The Greece-based contractor’s significant project wins in the GCC include the $3bn Abu Dhabi Midfield Terminal in a joint venture with Arabtec and TAV, $300mn roadworks in Oman, and the $4bn Kuwait Oil Company’s (KOC) Lower Fars heavy oil development with Petrofac. Looking ahead, CCC enjoys an amply-supplied project pipeline. “Currently, our strategy is to focus on heavy infrastructure projects,” Samer Khoury, president for engineering and construction at CCC, told Construction Week in an exclusive interview last year. “If we want to maintain our growth and expect good margins in return, we need to focus on these market segments,” he said.
Khoury added that the firm expects projects with Saudi Aramco, as well as in Qatar, and for Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) in the UAE. Overseas, an LNG plant is planned in Mozambique. CCC reported revenues of $5.3bn in the first half of 2015, and has plans to grow at around 5% per year, he stated.
16. GS Engineering
South Korea’s GS Engineering is the main contractor at the huge Rumaitha and Shanayel Fields Phase III development project in Abu Dhabi. The Korean contractor has been appointed by the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Operations (ADCO) to build a massive crude oil processing plant at the site. The project will almost double the plant’s capacity from 46,000 to 85,000 barrels of oil per day. GS Engineering and Dodsal, a Dubai-based contractor, are hard at work to complete the job by the end of this year, with commercial operations expected to start in early 2017.
GS is also working on a $651mn order to build a floating LNG terminal and supporting facilities in Bahrain. The facility will have a capacity of 22.65mn cubic metres per day (mcmd) and is expected to be completed by June 2018. In Oman, GS is part of the consortium building the Liwa Plastics Industrial Complex operated by Orpic.
17. Target Engineering
Target Engineering is a single-source EPC contractor with operations in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It is part of Arabtec Holdings, the largest UAE-based construction group.
Target owns a controlling stake in Italian firm Idrotec, a marine design engineering company that has a worldwide reputation for its specialist marine, hydraulic and environmental designs for the oil, gas and marine sectors.
The company claims to be working on electrical and marine projects for regional NOCs with the total combined value of the contracts amounting to around $1bn. Target is working on a number of electrical projects for Saudi Aramco and, in terms of marine contracts for the oil and gas sector, the company is working on the Ruwais LNG Terminal Project; Project No. 5308 for ADNOC subsidiary GASCO and Excelerate LNG Development, worth $29.99mn; and cleaning and enhancement of NEB main channel and navigation facilities at Al Dabiyah, Abu Dhabi for the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operation (ADCO), another ADNOC subsidiary, worth $7.5mn.
18. Fluor
As one of the largest publicly traded EPC contractors in the world, Fluor was awarded a portion of the massive Al Zour refinery project in Kuwait. As part of a consortium with Daewoo and Hyundai Heavy Industries, the company bagged $5.7bn to build the support units and infrastructure at the 615,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.
Fluor has developed some of the region’s most complex petrochemical and refining facilities. Its portfolio of projects in the GCC includes the water facilities and modular buildings at the Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Complex, alongside a super absorbent polymer plant, as well as Sadaf’s petrochemical complex and Jubail acetyls plant.
Some of its 2015 construction milestones include the completion of BASF’s high-performance chemical production facilities in China and a large chemical complex in Germany. Last year also marked the completion of Dow’s $2.7bn-plus Reverse Osmosis (RO) facility at the Sadara petrochemical complex, which is the first plant of this kind outside the US.
19. Amec Foster Wheeler
Amec Foster Wheeler announced last year that it was expanding its UAE operations in response to recent key contract awards and growing opportunities in the Middle East. The UK-based construction giant is currently busy executing a number of contracts from Abu Dhabi, the largest of which is a project management consultancy (PMC) contract for the UZ750 project in the Upper Zakum field.
In March this year, Amec Foster Wheeler won a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract from Sonatrach for three new refineries in Algeria, which will each have a capacity of 5mn tonnes per annum of Algerian crude oil, and contain facilities for atmospheric distillation, liquefied petroleum gas separation, hydrocrackers, desulphurisation, bitumen production, utilities, blending, effluents treatment, control room and laboratories. A sit in Biskra will also include lubrication oil facilities. At each of the refineries there will also be administrative buildings, storage tanks and shipping facilities. Amec Foster Wheeler will also support Sonatrach in the selection of technology licensors for all three refineries.
20. Mott MacDonald
British construction major Mott MacDonald appeared to consolidate its grip on the regional oil and gas market when it signed a collaboration agreement with engineering, procurement, construction and project management company China Petroleum Engineering (CPE) last year. Under the agreement, CPE and Mott MacDonald will pursue opportunities including pipelines, storage, liquefied natural gas and loading jetties, as well as other infrastructure projects.
On the downstream side, Mott MacDonald was awarded a contract for the $4.3bn Ruwais refinery expansion project in Abu Dhabi in November 2015. The firm will manage the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages from commissioning to initial operation for the utilities, off-site facilities, tankage and associated interconnecting piping. The project is located in the Ruwais Industrial Complex, approximately 250km west of Abu Dhabi.
