A formal award is also due for the position of project manager, with the UK's AMEC understood to be in pole position. At least four companies submitted bids in mid-2005 for the five-year contract, including Foster Wheeler, Fluor Corporation, both of the US, and WorleyParsons.

Bids are due to be submitted by 1 May for the second major onshore package on the Hout field expansion facilities project. Eight companies have been invited to price the estimated $400 million engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning (EPIC) contract, covering a 75,000-barrel-a-day gas-oil separation plant (GOSP) and a 125 million-cubic-feet-a-day gas processing plant.

The invitees are Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company and Hyundai Heavy Industries Company, both of South Korea, Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC), a three-member team of Parsons E&C, part of Australia's WorleyParsons, with Saudi Oger and India's Larsen & Toubro, Egypt's Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries (Enppi), UAE-based Petrofac International with MAC Construction of Saudi Arabia, and Techint and Saipem, both of Italy.

KJO is a 50:50 joint venture of Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC) and Saudi Arabia's Aramco Gulf Operations Company (AGOC).