Japanese consortium Qatar Petroleum Development Company’s (QPD) has awarded UAE-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) a $40m contract on its South Field development.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build three new platforms and a series of underground pipelines is due for completion by March 2011.

The contract is the final contract on QPD’s estimated $300-400m South Field development. The tendering process for contracts at the field began in 2009, and sources close to the project say they do not expect QPD to launch any further tenders.

QPD is carrying out its own drilling activities, which are expected to completed by the end of July. The overall development project will be completed by the end of 2014.

The field is located in structure A of Block 1 in southeast Qatar. The development project will add 3,000 barrels a day (b/d) to production.

QPD is a joint venture of Cosmo Energy Exploration & Development and Sojitz Corporation, both of Japan, who signed a development and production sharing agreement for the acerage in 1997 (MEED 10:10:03).

The first phase of development resulted in the production of 5,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil from 2006 and was increased in two subsequent phases to 10,000 b/d in 2008.

Qatar has some 15.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to the US’ Energy Information Administration. In 2008, the emirate produced 1.2 million b/d of crude oil and non-crude liquids.