Italian oil and gas contractor Saipem has been awarded two contracts for offshore deals from Saudi Aramco, worth $1.3bn.

Saipem, which is part of Aramco’s long-term agreement (LTA) pool of offshore contractors, said the two contracts are for engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) work on the offshore Berri and Marjan fields.

Saipem’s scope of work under the deals include design, engineering, procurement, construction, installation and implementation of subsea systems, in addition to the laying of pipelines, subsea cables and umbilicals, platform decks and jackets.

Aramco is expected to award a number of offshore deals, which it tendered out last year to the five original LTA players, in the near future.

Earlier in January, MEED reported that the consortium of India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and UK-headquartered Subsea 7 secured $600m-worth of two deals from Aramco for EPCIC work on its Berri and Zuluf offshore oil and gas fields.

In 2018, Aramco announced a capital expenditure budget of $414bn to be spent over the next nine years, mainly on maintaining its spare capacity in oil and raising its gas output.

Building on and maintaining offshore potential is a core part of the programme, meaning a steady flow of projects will be tendered to the LTA players in 2019.

Aramco’s concern that the five original LTA players would not be able to cope with the volume of future offshore work has led to it expanding the LTA pool.

Aramco has added four new entities to the LTA group, meaning nine parties in total will now be able to compete for offshore work tendered to the club.