Australia’s Habtoor Leighton Group has been awarded a civil works contract by US oil field services provider Weatherford at the Zubair oil field in the south of Iraq.

The deal was announced by the construction group at the end of September, although it did not provide any details on the project’s scope, location or value.

However, according to sources close to the project, the deal was actually signed earlier in July. Since then, Habtoor Leighton has invited firms to bid for its own subcontract covering the construction of oil and water storage tanks at the Zubair Initial Production Facility (IPF).

The scope of Habtoor Leighton’s contract covers partial engineering and construction of civil, utility and infrastructure works. This includes site offices, earthworks, roads and buildings, and storage tanks.

The closing date for submissions for the storage facilities was on 1 August. It remains unclear who was awarded the contract.

Weatherford was awarded the $843m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the construction of the IPF. The company is building six trains of production facilities, with a capacity of 50,000 barrels a day (b/d) each by 2014.

Bids for the construction of three degassing at the field are still under evaluation by Italy’s Eni, the lead developer of the field. Italian engineering firm Saipem is understood to be the frontrunner for the estimated $500m-plus deal. The UK’s Petrofac, and Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Samsung Engineering, both of South Korea are also in contention.

The Zubair field is operated by a consortium of Italy’s Eni, along with US oil firm Occidental Petroleum, South Korea’s Kogas and state-owned South Oil Company.