Larsen & Toubro lowest bidder for Midyan

14 April 2013

Indian contractor frontrunner for non-associated gas field in the Western Province of kingdom

India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is the lowest bidder for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for Saudi Aramco’s Midyan non-associated gas processing project in the Western Province of Saudi Arabia.

The Indian contractor has emerged as the favourite, but despite bids being under evaluation since January, no award has yet been made by Saudi Aramco. MEED reported in March that L&T was among the frontrunners for the scheme.

“It is an open secret that L&T is the lowest [bidder], but no-one is sure exactly what is taking so long to make an award,” says an oil and gas executive working in Saudi Arabia. “No-one seems to know when an award will be made.”

L&T was not available for comment when contacted by MEED.

The project will involve the development of the non-associated onshore Midyan gas field to produce 75 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas and 4,500 barrels a day (b/d) of condensate for a 20-year period.

The scope of works will include the EPC of upstream and processing facilities for the Midyan field, as well as pipelines to transport the gas and condensate. An interesting facet of the project will be that most of the facilities will be skid-mounted. This means that they can be transported to other smaller gas fields after production from Midyan is completed, which is a first for the kingdom.

The project is expected to be completed in late 2015. The Midyan field has been developed by Aramco to alleviate the burning of crude oil for power generation in the northwest of the kingdom during the summer months. The area has several small non-associated gas fields that are also expected to be exploited to provide gas for power generation.

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