Iraq’s South Oil Company (SOC) plans to tender an estimated $600m-plus deal to build and install a series of pipelines connecting inland oil storage and offshore shipping terminals and facilities with Japanese financing.

The project, known as Japanese Sealines, will be financed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as part of the Japanese government’s commitment of up to $5bn of assistance for reconstruction in Iraq made at the Madrid Donor Conference in 2003.

Dates for the tender are still tentative, says a source close to the scheme, but a request for quotations is expected to be released on 15 October, with bids due to be submitted by 15 December. The contract could be awarded as early as 15 March 2011.

The project will include the installation of a 45-kilometre trunk line and a 10km onshore pipeline, both with a diameter of 48 inches. It will also include the installation of a single-point mooring (SPM) and pipeline-end manifold supplied by the Netherland’s SBM Offshore.

Eight international engineering groups have been prequalified for the deal:

• Punj Lloyd (India)
• Marubeni (Japan) with Toyo (Japan) and McDermott (UK)
• Saipem (Italy)
• National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) (UAE)
• Al-Habtoor Leighton (UAE)
• Royal Boskalis Westminster (Netherlands) with Penta Ocean Construction (Japan)
• JFE Engineering Corporation (Japan)
• Van Oord (Netherlands) with SBM Offshore (Netherlands)

Iraq’s cabinet approved a $733m deal on 28 September for Al-Habtoor Leighton to expand oil export facilities at Basra to a 4.5 million barrels a day (b/d), from the current 1.8 million b/d.  Foster Wheeler won the project’s management consultancy services contract in July. The scheme includes the installation of two new onshore and offshore pipelines, along with three SPMs and a central manifold and metering platform by July 2013 (MEED 14:7:10).

Iraq exported a total of 55.4 million barrels of crude oil in August, at an average of 1.79 million b/d. Most of this, about 1.45 million b/d, was exported through the Basra and Khor al-Amaya oil terminals into the Gulf, earning the country $3.19bn in revenues for the month.