Firms submitted technical bids on 7 October for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, with commercial bids due on 16 December.

The six bids are expected to come from Dubai-based Dodsal, India's Larsen & Toubro, South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction, UAE-based Petrofac, Italy's Snamprogetti and Paris-based Technip with the local National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

The project covers the installation of three compression stations, each containing three booster compressors (MEED 11:7:08).

The work is part of the second-phase expansion of the field.

Bab has a design capacity of 420,000 barrels a day (b/d).

However, with constraints posed by the lack of gas for reinjection to maintain reservoir pressure, sustainable capacity is currently 300,000 b/d.

The original tender was cancelled after two bids submitted by a German team of ILF Consulting Engineers and Siemens, and NPCC with Technip and Germany's Man, came in up to three times the initial estimated budget of $600m (MEED 12:10:07).

For the retender, the client has split the procurement of the compressors from the EPC element to reduce costs and the overall development period.

Technip is the front-end engineering and design consultant.