Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (Adma-Opco) plans to build at least one new artificial island to support its development of the offshore Saath al-Raazboot (Sarb) oilfield.

Sources close to the project say that the offshore oil and gas developer has decided to use the island to support drilling, production, processing and distribution facilities at the field.

Adma’s sister company, Zakum Development Company (Zadco), is using four artificial islands to boost production at the offshore Upper Zakum field by 250,000 barrels a day (b/d) to 750,000 b/d.

The US’ Fluor Corporation is currently completing front-end engineering and design (Feed) studies for the project. It has until the second quarter of 2011 to design offshore facilities, which can pump 100,000 (b/d) of oil from the previously untapped field (MEED 2:2:2010).

The project was originally meant to include two production platforms, about 30 kilometres of pipelines, and associated production units. Regional projects tracker MEED Projects values the scheme at about $1.5bn in total.

The project is part of a programme being led by the two offshore operators in the emirate, Adma-Opco and Zadco, to boost Abu Dhabi’s offshore production capacity from 1.1 million b/d currently to 1.75 million b/d by 2020.

The two companies are expected to award deals worth up to $25bn by 2014 in order to meet their targets.