Under the contract, understood to have been awarded in the summer, Halliburton is providing its full complement of well construction, carrying out reservoir evaluation and completion services, as well as geophysical, geological and drilling software, developed by its Landmark Graphicsbusiness unit.

Halliburton says that, in order to reduce the total number of drilling locations and to minimise environmental impact, multiple wells will be drilled from a single pad. Extended-reach drilling techniques and multilateral technologies will be also be used by Aramco to expose a greater amount of the reservoir. To minimise the amount of traffic to and from the well site, Halliburton's systems will be used to transmit real-time data from the rig into the operator's office.

For the LSTK packages on Qatif, contractors are now preparing to submit bids in early January, following a one-month bid extension. The largest package involves the construction of a gas/oil separation plant (GOSP) at Qatif north and the offshore Abu Safah field. The second package calls for a new GOSP at Qatif south, while the third package centres on the expansion of gas-handling capacity at Berri.

Companies that are prequalified for one or more of the packages include Japan's JGC Corporation, Chiyoda Corporation, also of Japan, France's Technip, Argentina's Techintand Canada's SNC Lavalin.

Foster Wheeler Energy, the UK office of the US-based Foster Wheeler Corporation, is the project manager on Qatif and is providing basic engineering and construction management services (MEED 25:5:01).