China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has retendered a deal to provide project management services for a new crude oil export pipeline and trunk-lines in southeastern Iraq, which is now threatening to run over schedule.

CNOOC leads a consortium developing the Missan oil field complex and plans to build an export pipeline from the field, as well as trunk-lines from its production facilities to a central processing facility.

Documents are available until 10 August from CNOOC’s offices in Dubai, with bids due to be submitted by 30 August.

According to tender documents seen by MEED, the “construction of this pipeline now becomes very critical, schedule-wise, and a EPCC [engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning] type contract is to be considered and secured by the concerned party on a fast-track basis”.

CNOOC has targeted the end of 2013 for the project’s completion. The consultant’s services will cover the whole period of basic design, detailed engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning.

Some trunk-lines already exist, but sections are damaged and need to be replaced. The pipelines vary from 12 inches to 22 inches in diameter, with lengths of up to 30 kilometers.

The deal also covers the construction of a 450,000 barrels-a-day (b/d) 32-inch pipeline, which will run about 53km from the pumping station at the Buzurgan Terminal to a pigging station at the nearby Halfaya oil field. This will connect with a 42-inch export pipeline running 272km to storage facilities at Al-Fao.

The Missan oil field complex includes three producing fields, Abu Ghraib, Buzurgan and Fakka, along the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq. CNOOC plans to raise production capacity to 450,000 b/d in two phases by 2017. The first phase covers the rehabilitation of existing facilities and early production, increasing capacity to 245,000 b/d in 2014.