International engineering firms now have until early February to submit proposals to build new oil early production facilities at the Zubair oil field in the south of Iraq.

Italy’s Eni, which leads the consortium developing the 4-billion-barrel field originally asked firms to submit bids in December.

According to a source close to the project, at least five firms have been prequalified for the deal, which could be worth as much as $1bn. The prequalifiers include:

• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• JGC Corporation (Japan)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)

Saipem is carrying out the front-end engineering and design (feed) for the contract.

The Italian oil firm is yet to make a decision on a contractor for an estimated $300m deal to revamp existing production facilities after bids were submitted in September. Three Italian firms; Bonatti, Techint and Tecnimont bid, along with Punj Lloyd of India and Dubai-based Dodsal (MEED 16:9:11).

The field is being developed by a consortium of Eni, the US’ Occidental Petroleum, South Korea’s Korea Gas Corporation and state-owned Missan Oil Company.

The field’s development plan includes the construction of five new degassing stations and revamping existing ones to cope with the increase in production. This is in addition to overhauling existing wells and repairing pipelines and production facilities. Some of the facilities at the field were first installed in the 1950s, when production first began.