International engineering firms submitted technical bids on 15 July for the offshore portion of Qatar’s Barzan gas scheme, that is expected to cost a total of $8bn.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) issued the tender in April asking for technical bids for the offshore engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. Commercial bids are expected to be submitted in September.

Firms bidding on the offshore package include:

• National Petroleum Construction Company (UAE)
• Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea)
• J Ray McDermott (Jebel Ali-based)
• Saipem (Italy)

For the onshore portion of the project, estimated at $1.7bn, engineering firms are preparing submissions for a 13 August deadline, sources close to the project tell MEED.

QP prequalified four groups to bid for the onshore portion of the deal after contractors submitted documents at the end of March. These include:

• Technip (France)
• Saipem, China Technical Consultants (CTCI)
• Chiyoda Corporation (Japan), Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• JGC (Japan)

QP invited at least 10 international contractors to express interest in the four EPC deals to build the scheme in November last year (MEED 18:12:09).

Onshore work includes the construction of two gas processing trains capable of handling 850 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) each, along with gas sweetening units, amine recovery units, storage and loading facilities as well as offsites.

Chiyoda carried out the front-end engineering and design (Feed) study on the Barzan gas structure in the first half of 2009.

The Barzan project is a joint venture between QP and the US oil major Exxon-Mobil Corporation which aims to meet the natural gas requirements of Qatar’s power and water generating companies as well as providing potential feedstock for downstream petrochemicals production.

The scheme will be developed over three phases, each with an onshore and offshore portion. Phase one involves the construction of two onshore gas processing trains with a combined capacity of 1.7 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) by the end of 2013. Phase two will add another 2 billion cf/d. The total will be brought to 6.2 billion cf/d of gas on the completion of phase three which will provide a further 2.5 billion cf/d.