Russia’s Gazprom, the developer of Iraq’s Badra oil field in Wasit province, is finalising its shortlist of prequalified firms for the first of three engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) deals.

The firm expects to release details of the full shortlist by mid-August. Gazprom tendered three deals in late May, covering the construction of a central processing facility, an oil gathering system and an export pipeline from Badra to the Gharraf field in the south of the country.

Sources close to the schemes say that of the dozens of engineering firms to submit documents in 31 May, Gazprom has so far shortlisted four firms for the central processing facility, including France’s Technip, South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and the UK’s Petrofac.

Firms submitted prequalification documents on 19 June for the oil gathering system and the export pipeline.

Technip was awarded the front-end engineering design (feed) deal for the field in February, which was completed in June.

In June, Gazprom selected the US’ Schlumberger for a three-year drilling deal, for eleven wells using three drilling rigs, with the first appraisal and development wells expected to be completed in early 2012. The 3 billion barrel field was awarded in January 2010 to a consortium of Gazprom, South Korea’s Kogas, Malaysia’s Petronas and TPAO of Turkey (MEED 21:6:11).

The consortium plans to lift production at the field to 170,000 barrels a day (b/d) at the currently inactive reservoir, for a fee of $5.50 a barrel above 15,000 b/d.