Four companies have submitted technical bids for Iraq’s $13bn Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), a key part of the country’s plans to increase oil production.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors submitted bids on 15 April, according to industry sources.

“Technical bids were submitted last week,” says one source. “A bid deadline for commercial bids has not yet been announced. It will probably be some time in the next two to three months.”

The tender process is progressing despite a breakdown in talks between US-based ExxonMobil and Iraq, who have been discussing partnering on the project for more than two years.

Colorado-based CH2M is currently project management consultant (PMC) on the CSSP.

The project will provide the operators with water to inject into the reservoirs to increase pressure and boost recovery, with targeted recovery rates of 50 per cent. It will also free up fresh water for use by the local population.

Under the original plans, the CSSP was due to have the capacity to deliver 12.5 million barrels a day (b/d) of seawater through 426 kilometres of pipeline, including eight interconnecting stations and 10 delivery stations.

More recently, officials have talked about the project having a capacity of 5 million b/d and being delivered in two stages.

Earlier this year, an invitation to bid on the project was issued. In April, the director general of the state-run Basrah Oil Company, Ihsan Abduljabbar Ismaael, told reporters that five international companies were interested in the project.

The CSSP has suffered several setbacks since it was first conceived.

Originally led by ExxonMobil, responsibility for the project was transferred to US-based CH2M in a $170m deal in late 2012.

A front-end engineering and design (Feed) study on the pipelines to transport the seawater to oil fields was carried out by Austria’s ILF Consulting Engineers, with the group announcing the contract from South Oil Company in December 2014.

Separate feed studies were completed in 2016 by US-based Parsons. These concerned water intake and outfall structures, a shipping channel, offloading facility, seawater treatment facility, and gas turbine power plant.