South Korea’s Daelim Industrial is considered the frontrunner to win a major telemetry deal for state upstream operator, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), after submitting the lowest bid on 12 February.

Daelim’s price of KD54.6m ($196.6m) beat proposals from three other firms. Second placed SK Engineering, also of South Korea submitted a price of $230.2m, 17 per cent higher than Daelim. The UK’s Petrofac and Italy’s Saipem also bid.

• Daelim KD54.6m ($196.6m)
• SK Engineering KD63.9m ($230.2m)
• Petrofac KD67.9m ($244.2m)
• Saipem KD80.3m ($289.2m)

The winning firm will install telemetry systems across Kuwait’s entire consumer network. These include supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada), as well as control and management information systems (MIS) to detect oil and gas leaks along networks of pipelines.

The systems are designed to help prevent accidents of the kind that occurred at the Rawdhatain oil field in early 2002, when a pipeline explosion reduced Kuwait’s oil production by approximately 600,000 barrels a day and caused $160m in damage.

Switzerland’s ABB was selected in September to provide a Scada system for KOC’s assets, covering 2,000 kilometres of pipeline and 21 gathering centres, but did not disclose the value of the contract.

In 2005, Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas was awarded a $48.2m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to install a telemetry system for the state’s southern oil fields