Mellitah Oil & Gas, a joint venture of Italy’s Eni and Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC), is due to award a contract before June for the design, procurement, manufacturing and fabrication of a subsea production system for phase two of its Bahr Essalam project.

“Bids have been submitted and the contract is expected to be awarded in April or May of this year,” says a source close to the tendering process.

The deal has an estimated value of about $450m and three contractors are thought to have submitted bids for the project. They are:

• Onesubsea (US)
• GE Oil & Gas (Italy)
• FMC Technologies (US)

The scope of work for the subsea package encompasses detail design, procurement, manufacturing, fabrication, testing, integration testing, load out, sea fastening, delivery, technical assistance and supervision during installation, pre-commissioning and commissioning of the following equipment: 

• SubseaChristmas tree systems and related protective structures 
• Workover/completion system and workover control system 
• Subsea production controls system including topside control system and subsea control system
• Production controls umbilicals to manifolds 
• Electro-hydraulic jumpers and end terminations
• Remotely operated vehicles tooling 
• Testing, handling and shipping equipment

The project has seen significant delays due to the political instability seen since the country’s 2011 uprising.

In February 2013, Mellitah Oil & Gas said it intended to initiate the tender for the development of the subsea production system in the second quarter of 2013 with an estimated award date in the first quarter of 2015. Under this timeframe, the start date of the subsea facilities was going to be the fourth quarter of 2015.

Phase two of the Bahr Essalam development will deliver gas and condensates from 13 new subsea wells at the C-central and C-east area of the field to the existing Sabratha gas processing platform, where they will be partially treated and sent by a 110-kilometre pipeline to the onshore Mellitah plant.

The eastern area will include 10 wells divided into two cluster manifolds, which will be connected to existing risers on the Sabratha platform. A new cluster will also be built for two wells in the central area. The final well, which has already been drilled, will be completed and connected to a dedicated line to Sabratha.

Libya’s offshore production is dominated by the Bouri field, which sits within the NC-41 concession and is jointly operated by Italy’s Eni and state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC), through the Mellitah Oil & Gas venture. In 2010, production capacity was about 45,000 barrels a day.