Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Adoc), a Japanese-owned offshore operator, has awarded Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas a $310m contract for early production facilities at the Hail oil field, located in Abu Dhabi.

Tecnicas Reunidas was one of three companies that submitted bids for the project. The other two were India’s Essar and the local National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

The contract has been awarded on a lump-sum turnkey basis, with an execution schedule of 20 months.

The project’s scope includes onshore works on the islands of Mubarraz and Hail, the latter being an artificial island, and offshore works that include the installation of three subsea pipelines as well as the installation of a composite cable connecting the two islands.

It also includes separation, pumping and transportation facilities, as well as associated utilities and offsite facilities.

The project is located in the protected marine area of Marawah, which was classified as a biosphere reserve by Unesco in November 2007.

Unesco says it is a site of global importance as a shelter and feeding ground for dugongs, a manatee-like sea mammal that has been classified as “vulnerable to extinction” by the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Hail offshore oil field is located adjacent to Adoc’s existing operating fields Mubarraz, Umm al-Anber and Neewat al-Ghalan.

Maximum production from the undeveloped reservoirs at Hail is expected to be at similar volumes to Adoc’s current producing fields.

France’s Technip was appointed to carry out the front-end engineering and design (feed) study on the project, which was completed in late 2014, according to a source familiar with the scheme.

Adoc is Abu Dhabi’s largest oil producer that is not majority-owned by state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). It is estimated to produce about 24,000 barrels a day (b/d).

Adoc was awarded a contract in 2011 to develop the Hail field’s oil potential, adding it to the 30-year concession agreement for the three existing fields from the end of 2012.

It is 64.2 per cent owned by Japanese oil refiner Cosmo and 31.1 per cent owned by Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration, with the remainder owned by two Japanese electricity companies, according to the Adoc website.