UK-based Petrofac has been awarded the $1.3bn main contract for state-owned upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company’s (KOC’s) Gathering Centre 32.

MEED reported in January that Petrofac was the frontrunner after it submitted the lowest bid for the deal, which involves greenfield activities with tie-in works to existing brownfield infrastructure. The new infrastructure will have the capacity to produce about 120,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil together with associated water, gas and condensate.

Once complete, it will be the first sour gathering centre to be developed in the Burgan field in southeastern Kuwait and will process crude and associated gas recovered from the Arifjan, Marat, Minagish Oolite and Burgan Wara high hydrogen sulphide fields.

Petrofac says work will begin shortly and is scheduled to be completed in mid-2020.

The other bidders for the contract were South Korean firms SK Engineering, Samsung Engineering, and Daewoo; Italy’s Saipem; and Spanish firm Tecnicas Reunidas.