Italy’s Saipem has been awarded a new contract by Saudi Aramco for the installation of jackets on five offshore oil fields off Saudi Arabia’s Gulf coast.

The deal includes the design, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of 19 jackets for the development of the Marjan, Zuluf, Berri, Hasbah and Safaniya fields.

MEED reported in February that bids had been submitted on the contract by the five companies participating in Aramco’s Long-Term Agreement (LTA) programme of offshore projects. The projects involving the installation of 19 jackets were thought to be worth about $350m.

Saipem said that the combined total of the Aramco deal and other new contracts in Angola, West Africa and the Caspian Sea, amounts to $500m.

The LTA deal was initially signed in 2015 with four international EPC contractors including the US’ Dynamic Industries, a joint venture of India’s Larsen & Toubro, and Singapore’s Emas, McDermott and Italy’s Saipem. UAE-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) became the fifth LTA contractor in October 2016.

The LTA gives five international contractors exclusive rights to bid for several oil and gas producing platforms, tie-in platforms, pipelines, power cables and related facilities under Aramco’s masterplan for its offshore fields.

Aramco is thought to have awarded more than $5bn-worth of contracts on the LTA agreement between the start of 2016 and the end of the first quarter of 2017.

Since the first quarter, in addition to the new Saipem contract, NPCC was awarded a contract to install four wellhead decks, along with subsea pipelines, cables and tie-ins for the Safaniya, Zuluf and Berri oil fields.

Aramco is planning to add as much as 1 million b/d of additional oil production through major field developments at Marjan, Berri and Zuluf, MEED reported in June.

Two deals were recently awarded on the Marjan development. This week Australia’s WorleyParsons won a contract for engineering and design work on new offshore platforms and additional pipelines at the Marjan field.

In June, UK-based Amec Foster Wheeler had been awarded the front-end engineering and design (feed) contract for the Marjan expansion scheme.