Technical bids are due to be submitted to Petroleum Development Oman (PDO)by 4 December for four major five-year service contracts, and an award is expected in early 2005. About 10 companies, most of them international, are prequalified for each contract.

The two types of contract are divided into work at PDO's acreage in the north and south of the sultanate.

Two cover off-plot delivery, including instrumentation work, flowlines and xmas trees, and each is worth about $75 million a year. The second two contracts, each worth about $25 million a year, are for engineering and maintenance work. All carry the possibility of a two-year extension.

The contracts are part of a wider move by PDO to outsource services, based on the practices elsewhere in the world of the company's major foreign shareholder, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (MEED 6:8:04).