Saudi Aramco has awarded engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts totalling more than $1bn for three pipeline packages as part of its Haradh gas compression plants (GCP) project.

The value of each of the contracts is thought to be at least $350m, implying that Aramco has awarded jobs worth a total of over $1bn, sources have told MEED.

The North Haradh GCP pipeline has been awarded to China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Corporation.

Italy’s Saipem has won the contract for the South Haradh GCP pipeline package.

Turkey-based Tekfen Construction has secured the Satellite Haradh GCP pipeline package.

The main scope of the packages is to build a pipeline network that would connect the several plants in the three clusters of the Haradh GCP project.

The combined length of the pipelines is understood to be 2,800 kilometres, with each of the three packages accounting for about 900 kilometres.

Australia-based WorleyParsons has done the overall front-end engineering and design work on the Haradh GCP project.

The Haradh natural gas and oil development lies 280km southwest of Dhahran. The work, which began in December 2000, consists of a gas plant capable of delivering 1.5 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) of sales gas to Saudi Arabia’s Master Gas System and a gas oil separation plant (GOSP) capable of stabilising 300,000 barrels a day of Arabian Light crude oil.

With burgeoning demand for electricity from local industries, households and infrastructure schemes, Aramco has embarked on a strategy to boost its production of natural gas.

The kingdom’s National Transformation Programme (NTP) sets a target for raising domestic gas production to 17.8 billion cf/d by 2020 and to 23 billion cf/d within the next decade, up from a current production rate of 12.5 billion cf/d.