State-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has issued tenders for the construction of a new gas sweetening facility at the Missan oil field complex in the east of Iraq.

CNOOC plans to build a gas sweetening unit with two production trains comprising a capacity of at least 17.5 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) each, according to sources close to the project.

The tender was launched on 18 October. No submission deadline has been set so far.

The facility will include an associated gas manifold, slug catcher and sulphur removal and dehydration units. Associated gas from the fields contains an estimated 7.5 per cent hydrogen sulphide. Construction is expected to take eight months to complete.

The original plans had included a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) recovery unit as well as a number of LPG and propane storage tanks and loading stations. These may be tendered later, covering the construction of four 3,000 cubic-metre LPG tanks and two 2,000 cubic-metre propane tanks.

The Missan complex includes three producing fields, Abu Ghraib, Buzurgan and Faqi, which straddle Iraq’s border with Iran. The complex, which was built in 1976, contains nine degassing stations, two junctions and a single central processing facility (CPF). It is located near the Buzurgan field.