Five companies have submitted technical proposals for the project management consultancy (PMC) contract for an onshore project at Abu Dhabi’s North East Bab (NEB) oil fields.

The contract will cover the front-end engineering and design (feed) stage of the NEB third-phase project tendered by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (Adco).

According to a source close to the process, the five companies submitting technical bids for the PMC contract are:

• Amec (UK)
• ILF Consulting Engineers (Austria)
• Mott MacDonald (UK)
• Veco (US/Canada)
• WorleyParsons (Australia)

The deadline for commercial proposals has not yet been set, although the PMC contract is expected to be awarded in the second quarter of this year. This would be about a month before the feed contract is awarded.

At least three companies are thought to have submitted technical proposals for the feed contract, but this is still to be confirmed. The feed phase will last for an estimated eight months.

NEB oil production comes from three separate fields. The third phase of NEB production is designed to increase production capacity at the Rumaitha and Shanayel fields to 39,000 barrels a day (b/d) and the Al-Dabbiya field to 73,000 b/d.