Saudi Aramco has awarded a five-year contract to US oil services company Halliburton for drilling work on Ghawar, the world’s largest oil field, in the Eastern Province.

The contract covers engineering and management of drilling operations, and includes an option for an additional five-year period.

The project involves up to four rigs and requires between 153 and 185 oil production, water injection and evaluation wells.

The Ghawar field has production capacity of 5 million barrels a day (b/d). It was discovered in 1948, is 280 kilometres long and 26km wide, encompassing 1.3 million acres (MEED 11:1:08).

In April 2008, Halliburton won a three-year contract to drill 93 wells on the 900,000 b/d Manifa oil field in Saudi Arabia.

Halliburton previously won the oil field services component of the Khurais oil field in 2006. The project is using up to 23 rigs to support the drilling and completion of more than 300 wells.