Iraq has awarded a $471.7 million contract for an oil export facility expansion and sub-sea pipeline to Italian group Saipem, Iraqi oil sources told Reuters yesterday.
Saipem will build a single point mooring buoy (SPM) with an export capacity of 900,000 barrels per day and construct a 50-kilometre pipeline to transport crude from storage depots in Iraq’s southern Faw peninsula to the new floating terminal, according to the sources and to documents obtained by Reuters.
Saipem should complete engineering, procurements and construction work within 24 months. The order is the second phase in a wider expansion project announced last year.
Tender documents show that three other companies submitted bids for the contract, including Leighton Offshore Private, National Petroleum Construction (NPCC) and J. Ray McDermott.
The whole expansion project, for which Foster Wheeler has the PMC contract, involves building two marine pipelines and one onshore pipeline and installing four single point moorings for loading oil tankers at a total cost of about $1.3 billion.
After completing the export facility expansion project, Iraq would start renovating two existing oil terminals in south Basra with a plan to build a strategic pipeline from the southern Basra fields through Syria and Turkey.
