Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) is due to complete engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work on eight security and surveillance platforms for Qatar Petroleum (QP) by the end of the month.

“The project is in its final stages and should be finalised in coming weeks,” said a source close to the scheme.

The EPC contract for eight offshore platforms was awarded to NPCC in June 2013.

Its value is unknown as it forms part of Qatar’s National Security Shield (NSS) and is subject to restrictions on how much information can be released to the public.

The project component of the NSS consists of constructing an integrated control and protection network that will include high-tech electronic surveillance and reconnaissance stations located both offshore, in Qatari waters, and onshore, on Qatar’s coastal and land borders.

NPCC’s 2013 contract for the offshore platforms was awarded through QP due to the institution’s experience in tendering similar offshore facilities in the oil and gas sector.

The sensor tower platforms will contain an array of surveillance systems including radar, direction finders, electro-optical cameras, automatic identifier systems, weather stations, maritime radio transmitters and wide area network antennas.

Four of the towers will cover the area to the northeast of Qatar, which includes the North Field, Al-Shaheen and the Al-Rayyan oil and gas fields.

The other four towers will cover fields around Halul Island to the east of Qatar, which are Idd el-Shargi, Bul Hanine, Maydan Mahzam and Al-Khaleej.

The scheme includes living quarters for 120 personnel.

When the NSS project is complete each tower will have a set of umbilical power cables from a nearby source and fibre-optic cables connecting them to the North field and East field networks.  

One of the towers, the Forward Mounted Base (FMB) will have a helicopter deck, accommodation, operational and communication rooms, offices and systems control rooms.

Airbus Group, the France-based aerospace and defence corporation that was known as EADS prior to 2014, is the main contractor for the NSS project.

The project has seen long delays since it was first announced and was temporarily shelved in 2005.

In 2010, QP issued a tender for design work on the scheme’s offshore platforms, which was won by Italy’s Saipem in July 2011.

Saipem beat the US’ FosterWheeler, Australia’s WorleyParsons and France’s Technip to win the contract after lengthy tender stage that saw some of the bidders resubmit commercial bids twice.