Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded an estimated $250m construction contract for its Saih Nihayda gas compression project to South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction.

The contract covers the installation of gas compressor units supplied by the US’ GE Oil & Gas, and subsidiary work including the construction of gas substations at the Saih Nihayda field in central Oman.

The South Korean contractor will also ‘debottleneck’ existing facilities, boosting the amount of gas they can handle from 20 million cubic metres a day to 25 million cubic metres a day.

The project will enable PDO to maintain reservoir pressure at the field, which produces natural gas and condensates. Production at the field is forecast to start declining from 2015.

Seven international firms submitted bids for the deal in September and GS emerged as the frontrunner to win the deal in early December (MEED 7:12:09).

According to PDO, the project will be the first to be designed in-house by the company’s front-end engineering and design (Feed) team, set up in February 2008.