Qatar Petroleum (QP) has invited engineering firms to bid for a design deal for offshore security and surveillance infrastructure covering the state’s oil and gas fields.

Known as the Qatar Defence project, the scheme involves the construction of eight offshore sensor towers by 2013. The state-owned energy firm first discussed the scheme in 2005 but did not proceed, says a source close to the project.

QP has now decided to move ahead with the scheme and in June it’s offshore engineering department met with contractors to discuss the best way to move ahead.

During the meeting QP asked whether it was possible to move from feasibility study to construction, but most contractors stated that it would need to go through a front-end engineering and design (Feed) phase, says the source.

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 including; Idd el-Shargi, Bul Hanine, Maydan Mahzam and Al-Khaleej.

The feasibility study and Feed contractor will determine the exact location of the sensor platforms and whether they will interfere with helicopter path zones and existing communication systems. It will also assess the provision of the sensors’ power and utility requirements, since the scheme includes living quarters for 120 men.

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.

Each tower will require 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.