The companies that responded to the invitation to prequalify for the lump-sum turnkey (LSTK) contract are CBI Arabia, part of the US' Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CBI), Japan's Chiyoda Corporation, South Korea's Daelim Industrial Company, JGC Corporation, also of Japan, Italy's Snamprogetti, Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas, Italy-based Techintand Paris-based Technip.

The GOSP-3 facility will have capacity to produce 300,000 barrels a day of Arabian light crude. Apart from the GOSP unit, the successful bidder will build a desalter/dehydrator, a water/oil separator, two high-pressure production traps, a low-pressure production trap, three seawater injection pumps, two crude shipping pumps, plant utilities and gas-gathering facilities.

Additional work covers the installation of an injection pump at Haradh GOSP2.

Invitations to bid are scheduled to be released in November, following prequalification. The bid deadline will be January 2004 and the contract is due to be awarded three months later. The project is due to come on stream in April 2006.

The US' Foster Wheeleris providing project management consultancy (PMC) services and the front-end engineering and design (FEED) on the scheme.

Last year, Aramco awarded two GOSP contracts under the Qatif incremental oil and associated gas project to Snamprogetti and CBI Arabia (MEED 8:3:02).

www.meed.com/oilgas