State upstream operator, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has awarded the local Mechanical Engineering & Contracting Company (MECC) a contract to build high pressure flowlines from Jurassic wells in the north of the country.

MECC was approved by Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC), which oversees the country’s major public tenders, in mid-October. The CTC approved a price of KD58.9m ($207m), slightly higher than the KD55.89m signed in the contract with KOC on 29 November.

The planned pipelines are due to be completed before the end of 2014. They will connect the Jurassic wells in the North Kuwait area to manifolds and gathering centres, where the crude oil will be processed.

KOC signed a total of 15 contracts in November, worth KD148m. This takes the company’s total upstream contracts for the year up to more than $3.15bn. In the whole of 2011, KOC awarded only $2.6bn-worth of contracts.

The bulk of contract award value in November came from three deals, which made up $447m of the total. The largest is MECC’s contract, followed by two deals worth $124m each to Canada’s Grey Wolf Drilling International for the supply of 3,000 horsepower deep drilling rigs.