Dubai Petroleum Enterprise (DPE) plans to award the $50-100m contract to develop the newly discovered Al-Jalila oil field by mid-September.

Contractors handed in final bids for the engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning (EPIC) contract in late July, but say that the state oil and gas developer is yet to let them know who has won the deal.

The company is in the final stages of assessing bids and should award a contract by mid-September, a source with close ties to DPE tells MEED. The process is unlikely to be held up by the onset of Ramadan, he adds.

The contract covers a basic unmanned offshore production platform with a single compressor unit and about 12 kilometres of flowlines to transport oil produced at the field to DPE’s onshore processing and distribution facilities (MEED 27:4:10).

Firms that bid on the contract are understood to include:

• Global Industries Limited (US)
• J Ray McDermott (US)
• Mi Swaco (US)
• National Petroleum Construction Company (UAE)
• Saipem (Italy)

The discovery was made to the east of the existing Rashid field, Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said in a statement in February. The ruler’s office declined to comment on the size of the new field, potential output or a timeline for its development.

Sources with knowledge of the project estimate that it will produce around 5,000-10,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil, and that the new facilities will cost $50-100m.

“It is a pretty small deal,” says one engineering executive with knowledge of the project. “But obviously, because it is in Dubai rather than [oil-rich] Abu Dhabi, it is going to generate a lot of buzz.”

Analysts remain cynical over the potential of a new discovery in Dubai, given that production at the Fateh, South Fateh, Falah and Rashid fields started in the 1970s and 1980s, but overall output peaked at around 400,000 b/d in the early 1990s.

Until 2007, when DPE took over the emirate’s oil production, the industry was overseen by a consortium led by the US’ ConocoPhillips. Figures released by the consortium after it was disbanded suggested that overall output was around 65,000-80,000 b/d, although production was in rapid decline. The emirate’s oil production is no more than 50,000 b/d, senior industry sources tell MEED.