The four-phase contract, which will take about 10 months, involves: identifying the hazardous operations of the existing oil, gas and water separation facilities and the bottlenecks; proposing modifications to increase output; and carrying out the basic engineering for the proposed project.

The project is aimed at increasing capacity of the processing facilities to 700,000 barrels a day (b/d) by 2005 from 600,000 b/d, through debottlenecking of the three existing trains and a standby unit.

The client is offshore operator Zakum Development Company (Zadco), which is 88 per cent owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company with the remaining 12 per cent held by Japan Oil Development Company (MEED 12:7:02).