Italy’s Saipem has been awarded a $471.7m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by Iraq’s Oil Ministry for the second phase of expansion at the Basra in the south of the country.

The Italian firm beat rival proposals from three other firms, Reuters news agency reports.

These were:

• Leighton Offshore (Australia)
• National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC)
• J Ray McDermott (Jebel Ali-based)

Saipem will build a single-point mooring buoy (SPM) with an export capacity of 900,000 barrels a day (b/d) and construct a 50-kilometre pipeline to transport crude from storage depots in Iraq’s southern Faw peninsula to the new floating terminal. Construction is expected to be completed within two years.

Leighton Offshore signed a $733m contract with state-owned South Oil Company (SOC) for the first phase of the expansion, which includes includes the installation of two new onshore and offshore pipelines, along with three SPM, a central manifold and metering platform.

Leighton was also recommended by SOC to the Finance Ministry for approval in late July for the final stage of the expansion scheme, which will see capacity rise to 4.5 million b/d from the current 1.8 million b/d (MEED 22:7:11).