State oil firm Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has tendered an estimated $500m water injection contract intended to help maintain production levels at the Burgan oil field in southeast Kuwait, as it struggles to sustain output at the world’s second-biggest oil reservoir.

Sixteen firms have already been prequalified for the deal, which will provide pressure support for the Wara formation in the Burgan area. The scheme was initially due to be tendered in February.

A pre-tender meeting will be held on 7 November. Bids will be submitted on 13 March 2011.

The state energy firm plans to build water collection, treatment and injection facilities to pump 1 million barrels a day of water into the Wara geological formation to maintain reservoir pressure and production levels at the field (MEED 4:12:09).

The winning contractor will build a water treatment plant with 10 water treatment units, 60 pumps and 700 kilometres of pipelines, with diameters varying from six to 30 inches. It will also include 20 tanks capable of holding between 10,000 to 240,000 barrels.

KOC stopped producing oil from the Wara formation for six months between November 2006 and May 2007 to give US oil field services provider Schlumberger time to map the pressure in the oil reservoir.

The Burgan field currently produces a maximum of 1.7 million b/d, compared with the 2.4 million b/d in 1972. Analysts forecast that its production capacity could fall to 1.5 million b/d by 2020 unless action is taken. The greater Burgan area contains about 70 billion barrels of oil, making it second only to Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field.