Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has received commercial bids for fresh front-end engineering and design (feed) works on the Hail and Ghasha offshore sour gas field development megaproject.

Consultants submitted commercial bids for the revised feed works for the Hail and Ghasha scheme on 23 October, according to a source.

The Abu Dhabi energy giant received technical bids for the revised Hail and Ghasha feed works from consultancy firms on 4 October, MEED previously reported.

Companies competing for the Hail and Ghasha re-feed contract are understood to be:

• Fluor Corporation (US)
• Technip Energies (France)
• Worley (Australia)

US-based KBR and UK consultant Wood Group, which Adnoc invited to bid for the Hail and Ghasha feed works, declined to participate in the tendering process.

Adnoc has restarted the feed stage for the offshore sour gas development project as it seeks to overhaul its execution plans for the multibillion-dollar project.

MEED reported in late July that Adnoc had issued notifications to oil and gas consultancy companies on 25 July informing them of its plan to issue new tenders for revised feed works on the Hail and Ghasha scheme, which was previously estimated to be worth up to $15bn.

Adnoc eventually issued the feed tender in August, according to industry sources.

Hail and Ghasha scheme

The Hail and Ghasha fields are located in Abu Dhabi’s offshore Ghasha sour gas concession. Adnoc intends to produce more than 1.5 billion cubic feet a day of sour gas from the project by the middle of this decade.

US-headquartered Bechtel carried out the previous feed works on the project, while KBR was the overall project management consultant.

According to the original Hail and Ghasha plan, the EPC works on the project were divided into four main packages. The packages, their estimated contract values and the contracting entities bidding for each are as follows:

• Package 1 (offshore) – $3bn
  • Saipem (Italy) / National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC, UAE)
  • McDermott (US) / Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)
  • Archirodon (Greece) / Sinopec Engineering (China)
  • Petrofac (UK)
     
• Package 2 (offshore) – $2bn
  • Petrofac (UK) / Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
  • Saipem (Italy) / China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation (CPECC, China) / NPCC (UAE)
  • Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
  • Archirodon (Greece) / Sinopec Engineering (China)
     
• Package 3 (onshore) – $1bn and $2bn
  • Samsung Engineering (South Korea) / Petrofac (UK)
  • Archirodon (Greece) / Sinopec Engineering (China) / Consolidated Contractors Company (Lebanon)
  • Dodsal (India)
  • Tecnimont (Italy)
     
• Package 4 (onshore) – $4bn and $6bn
  • Petrofac (UK) / Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
  • Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain) / McDermott (US)
  • Tecnimont/Larsen & Toubro Hydrocarbon Engineering (India)
  • Saipem (Italy) / CPECC (China)

An Adnoc spokesperson previously said that the estimated contract values reported for the Hail and Ghasha project EPC packages are “purely speculative”.

A fifth package, relating to early civil works and building support structures, has been awarded to local contractor Al-Jaber Energy Services.

Project timeline

Adnoc began the EPC tendering phase for the Hail and Ghasha development in early 2019. In the previous bidding round, technical bids for EPC packages two, three and four were submitted by 11 November, and technical entries for package one were submitted by 25 November.

As part of the original project schedule, Adnoc was set to receive commercial bids in January 2020.

However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic last year and its severe impact on the global energy industry, particularly oil and gas prices, Adnoc delayed progress on the Hail and Ghasha scheme.

ALSO READ: Sour gas project delays highlight complexities

Since September last year, Adnoc had been considering downsizing the overall scope of work on the Hail and Ghasha development to reduce the total capital spending required to develop the asset, and eventually issued a revised scope of work in the form of a new tender bulletin.

Following the new tender bulletin, contractors submitted revised technical bids by 5 December 2020, in line with the recalibrated scope of work on the four EPC packages. Commercial bids were submitted by 24 February this year.

With Adnoc now looking to significantly modify key aspects of the Hail and Ghasha scheme, it remains to be seen when the UAE energy major and its equity partners in the Ghasha concession will be able to make the final investment decision.