The UK’s Petrofac, Engineers India, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, Italy’s Saipem, Hungary’s OTF Contracting and China’s Sinopec all put in bids for the estimated $500m engineering, procurement and construction deal on 3 October.

The winner will build a 1-kilometre-long pipeline from offshore production facilities at the West Bukha field, in the Strait of Hormuz, to an onshore processing unit at Musandam in northern Oman, which it will also build.

The onshore unit will handle 20,000 barrels of oil and 45 million cubic feet of gas a day. Oman Oil Company, which will award the contract, will also ask the winning contractor to carry out civil works at the onshore site. This includes excavation and ground-levelling works and construction of a 750-metre-long jetty.

Contractors expect Oman Oil Company to award the contract in December. If it proceeds as planned, the pipeline contract will be the biggest oil and gas deal awarded in Oman this year.

The largest energy deal to be awarded so far this year came in July, when Petrofac won a $350m deal to build a gas compression system at the Kauther field (MEED 7:7:09).