The UK’s Petrofac has submitted the lowest bid for an estimated $750m deal to expand effluent water transfer pipelines and the seawater treatment plant at Subiya.

According to sources close to the project, in a 11 May bid round Petrofac’s bid beat proposals from international firms including second placed Saipem of Italy and third placed South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction.

Around 28 firms were prequalified to bid for the deal. The client, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) originally tendered the project In 2008 with Italy’s Snamprogetti, now part of Saipem, emerging as the low bidder followed by Petrofac.The bid round was cancelled with Snamprogetti’s prices coming in significantly above budget, at KD320m, then around $1.1bn (MEED 30:4:09).

Contractors now expect the deal to be awarded by the end of 2010.

The winning contractor will build a unit to increase the pressure of the Sabriya and Raudhatain oil and gas fields in north Kuwait. It will also carry out expansion works on three crude oil gathering centres along with 250km of associated pipelines, to handle 200,000 barrels a day (B/D) of effluent water.

The contractor will also increase the capacity of the seawater treatment plant at Subiya to 500,000 b/d of water from 300,000 b/d.

Crude oil, associated gas and water will be separated at each gathering centre, with gas sent for compression and the oil transferred to desalting units. The effluent water will be transferred to the central pumping facility, treated and mixed with seawater before being re-injected back into the wells.

KOC says it will be able to process 640,000 b/d of effluent water once the project is completed in late 2013.