Netherlands-based Arcadis has been awarded a contract to carry out a health, safety and environmental impact assessment (HSEIA) on Abu Dhabi’s Hail and Ghasha sour gas development.

The contract was awarded by Al-Hosn Gas, a subsidiary of state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), for a range of environmental consultancy services including the oversight and project management of all the environmental baseline surveys being carried out.

Adnoc is in the early phase of an estimated $15bn project to develop sour gas reservoirs at the offshore fields to meet project gas demand in the UAE.

Both the Hail and Ghasha fields are located in the Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO protected area home to important plant and animal habitats, Arcadis said.

Work is being planned to create a number of artificial islands that will enable Al-Hosn Gas to develop the sites and produce and transfer gas and condensate from both fields.

International engineering firms are anticipating a tender on the front-end engineering and design (feed) study for Hail and Ghasha in the coming months.

MEED revealed in May that US engineering group KBR is the frontrunner to win the project management consultancy (PMC) award on the project.