Saudi Aramco has awarded South Korea’s Samsung Engineering an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for its Shaybah Arabian Light crude increment project.

Samsung is already mobilised at the Shaybah oilfield, located in Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter, after being awarded all four packages for Aramco’s natural gas liquids (NGL) project at the site in 2011.

That deal was worth more than $3bn, but the package for the crude increment project is about $410m.  

The scope of works for the new deal, which was conducted after a direct negotiation with Aramco, will see Samsung expand the handling facilities to increase the field’s by 250,000 barrels a day (b/d). This includes adding additional gas oil separators, a wet crude handling train and a booster gas compressor.

The expansion is due to be completed by 2016 and Samsung will carry out the work concurrently with the NGL project.

Aramco also awarded China’s Shandong Electrical Power Construction Company the contract for the Shaybah combined-cycle facility. The scope of this package will involve converting the existing facilities to a two-block, combined-cycle power plant.

The new blocks will be coupled with a 120MW steam turbine generator to produce 240MW from power-wasted heat.  

The Shaybah field currently produces 750,000 b/d of crude.