Chinese engineering firm, China Petroleum Engineering Construction Company (CPEEC) has won a $162.5m contract for oil and gas production facilities at the Halfaya oil field in the Missan province of southern Iraq.

The 4.1 billion barrel field is being developed by CPEEC’s sister company PetroChina, another subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which invited seven contractors to bid for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work on the first phase of development at the Halfaya oilfield in Iraq in early January.

Prequalified firms include:

• CH2M Hill (US)
• CPECC
• Daqing Engineering & Construction (China)
• KNM (Malaysia)
• Malaysia Marine & Heavy Engineering (Malaysia)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Technip (France)

CPEEC will build early production and gas gathering facilities at the field, lifting capacity to 100,000 barrels a day (b/d), as well as installing power generators and gas-compressors at the Al-Kahla power station, according to Ali Abbas al-Turfi, the director of public relations for state-run Missan Oil Company, which is responsible oil fields in the province.

PetroChina led a consortium with France’s Total and Malaysia’s Petronas, which was awarded a technical service contract by the Oil Ministry in January 2010, along with state-owned South Oil Company (SOC). In return for a fee of $1.40 per barrel, the partners agreed to boost output to 535,000 barrels a day (b/d) over six years from a current level of just 3,100 b/d from four wells (MEED 18:3:11).

The field was included in Iraq’s second oil and gas licensing round in December 2009, which aims to increase crude oil production to 4.5 million b/d within five years and to 6 million b/d within 10 years. Current production is 2.7 million b/d.