Eight companies and groups are understood to be prequalified for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.

They are Dubai-based Dodsal, India's Larsen & Toubro, Spain's TR, SK Engineering & Construction and GS Engineering & Construction, both of South Korea, UAE-based Petrofac, Italy's Snamprogetti, and Paris-based Technip with the local National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

The original tender was cancelled after bids submitted by a German team of ILF Consulting Engineers and Siemens, and NPCC with Technip and Germany's Man, came in up to three times the initial estimated budget of $600m (MEED 12:10:07).

For the retender, the client has split the procurement of the compressors from the EPC element to reduce costs and the overall development period. The EPC portion is believed to have a budget of about $500m, but this is unlikely to be met in the current high cost environment (MEED 20:3:08).

The project covers the installation of three compression stations, each containing three booster compressors.

The work is part of the second-phase expansion of the field. Bab has a design capacity of 420,000 barrels a day (b/d). However, with constraints posed by the lack of gas for reinjection to maintain reservoir pressure, sustainable capacity is currently 300,000 b/d.

Technip is the front-end engineering and design consultant.