Canada’s SNC Lavalin has been awarded an $800m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, which is understood to be on Saudi Aramco’s System B shale gas project.

SNC Lavalin announced that it had been awarded a contract that involves developing infrastructure and processing facilities for a gas field in the Middle East but did disclose specific information on the project.

“SNC Lavalin’s lump sum turnkey EPC scope on the project including connecting gas producing wells into the main processing plant,” the company said in a statement.

Industry sources told MEED that SNC Lavalin had been selected for the System B shale gas project in northern Saudi Arabia after submitting the lowest-priced EPC bid.

Three companies submitted bids on the project in late September 2015. The other two companies were Japan’s JGC Corporation and Indian group Larsen & Toubro.

The project will expand on the System A phase of the project that was awarded to JGC during the third quarter of this year.

The System A tender had an initial capacity of 50 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas. However, a Reuters report citing industry sources claims this has been increased to 66 million cf/d.

With System B Aramco will establish the capacity to produce 200 million cf/d of gas in Turaif to supply a power plant at the nearby Waad al-Shamal phosphate mining development.

The gas from System B will be sent to the industrial phophates city through a 70-kilometre pipeline. Industrial support facilities will also be constructed.

All the surface facilities are also expected to be skid-mounted, meaning they can be transferred elsewhere when the reservoirs have depleted.