The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has officially confirmed awarding two front-end engineering design (Feed) contracts for its planned offshore ultra sour gas mega project, which consists of the Hail, Ghasha and Dalma fields.

MEED had on 4 January exclusively reported that Bechtel (US) was awarded the Feed contract for Hail and Ghasha, while France’s TechnipFMC was awarded the Dalma Feed job. Both contracts are worth “multi hundreds-million dirhams”, the Abu Dhabi oil giant confirmed in a press release.

According to Adnoc, the two Feed contracts together are the largest awarded by an oil and gas company in terms of man-hours.

The project, in the north-western area of the Abu Dhabi emirate, could meet nearly 20 per cent of the UAE’s gas demand by the second half of the next decade, Adnoc says.

In addition to awarding the Feed contracts, Adnoc is also evaluating five Technology Licensors contracts, covering Gas Treatment Licensor; Sulphur Recovery Unit (SRU) Licensor; Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) Licensor; Condensates Recovery (Hydro treaters) and Hydrogen Generation Licensor. These technologies are critical to the successful execution of the Feed phase, according to Adnoc.

From the start of the Feed phase, Adnoc will implement an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach. This will enable it to reduce the project’s schedule and cost, by integrating and involving all relevant stakeholders, including potential EPC bidders, sub-contractors, major manufacturers and governmental bodies during the Feed stage, that are critical to review design quality, identify the design’s uncertainties and enhance the precision of required engineering jobs.

In the Feed contract commercial evaluation process, the generation of in-country value (ICV) was considered as one of the selection criterion for the successful bidder, Adnoc states.

The Hail, Ghasha and Dalma project taps into Abu Dhabi’s Arab formation, which is estimated to hold multiple trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas and from which the project is expected to produce more than one billion cubic feet of gas a day, enough to provide to 2 million homes with electricity.

The awarding of Feed contracts follows the awarding of the Project Management Consultancy and artificial islands design and survey contracts to French firm Artelia and the US-based KBR.