Five companies including Jebel-Ali based J Ray McDermott, the UAE’s National Petroleum Construction Company, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, Italy’s Saipem and Global al-Rushaid, a subsidiary of the US’ Global Industries, are in line for the contract which includes the laying of 300 kilometres of pipeline.

McDermott previously won the $800m engineering and procurement contract from Aramco to install offshore platforms on the Manifa project (MEED 25:5:07).

Aramco is also poised to formally award around $3bn worth of major deals on Manifa as part of its bid to increase production capacity to 12.5 million b/d by next year (MEED 6:6:08).

Italy’s Snamprogetti, Japan’s JGC Corporation and Spain’s TR have snared the three main engineering, procurement and construction deals on the development, following commercial evaluation by Aramco. Although contracts have not been formally signed, the three firms are expected to announce their wins in the next week.