Italy’s Eni has tendered its latest deal in Iraq, the engineering, construction and procurement (EPC) of a new water treatment facility at the Zubair field in the south of the country.

Prequalified contractors have been asked to submit technical proposals by the end of January for the deal, which was tendered on a lump-sum turn-key basis, according to sources close to the project.

The plant will initially treat 400,000 barrels a day (b/d) of water, with the possibility of expansion up to 800,000 b/d to support water injection into the Zubair field. It will include four subsystems: water intake, a pre-treatment plant, a final treatment plant and connecting pipelines with the existing degassing station at Hammar-Mishrif and Eni’s planned new initial production facility (IPF) at Hammar, currently under construction by the US’ Weatherford.

Pipelines and connections will include:

• One 40-inch diameter buried pipeline from the main outfall drain (MOD) to a pumping station 300 metres away. The MOD was built by Saddam Hussein’s regime to drain water from the central marsh under the Euphrates River through a canal to the Gulf;
• Two parallel 28-inch, 19-kilometre buried pipelines for pre-treated water to run from the pre-treatment plant to the final treatment plant;
• One 24-inch, 2-kilometre buried pipeline for treated water from the final treatment plant to the existing Hammar-Mishrif degassing station;
• One 20-inch, 6.5-kilometre buried pipeline for treated water from the final treatment plant to the Hammar IPF;
• Buried fibre optic cables totalling 27.5-kilometres;
• Buried power transmission for 33-kilovolts over 1 kilometre;
• Overhead transmission for 19-kilometres;
• Roads.

The Zubair field has been in production for more than 20 years and contains significant existing infrastructure, including five degassing stations. The field is operated by a consortium of Italy’s Eni, along with US oil firm Occidental Petroleum, South Korea’s Kogas and state-owned South Oil Company.