Petrochina has floated a tender for a third central processing facility (CPF-3) at its Halfaya oil field in eastern Iraq to increase capacity to over 500,000 barrels a day (b/d).

The Chinese group has asked companies to submit bids for the project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by 16 October.

The main CPF-3 package will boost the site’s processing capacity by 200,000 b/d and includes a crude oil processing and storage system, gas compression system, produced water treatment system and infrastructure.

The scope of work also includes: crude oil and raw gas interconnection trunklines; condensate and fuel gas interconnection trunklines; fresh water and oil water interconnection trunklines; CPF-2 power plant expansion, overhead transmission line and switchyards; CPF-3 workshop; and associated facilities.

The pipelines for the hydrocarbons trunklines will be provided by Petrochina, while the EPC is expected to provide fibreglass line pipe for the water trunklines.

Petrochina has also tendered a project management consultancy (PMC) deal to contract a company to oversee the EPC phase of the phase-three development.

Petrochina was awarded the field development contract from Iraq’s oil ministry in 2009 and began operations in 2012 with a capacity of 100,000 b/d.

With the Halfaya export pipeline due to be completed in 2014, and the phase-two central processing facilities expected to be commissioned in 2015, Petrochina and its partners plan to increase the field’s production to 200,000 b/d over the next year.

The Halfaya consortium includes Petrochina’s parent group China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Malaysia-based Petronas, France’s Total and state-owned Missan Oil Company.

In December 2013, UK-based Mott MacDonald was awarded a new contract to provide technical support for the second and third phases of development at Halfaya. The company had already completed work on the first phase of the development.