The study, aimed at increasing production to 750,000 barrels a day (b/d) from 550,000 b/d, will look at wellhead platforms, subsea pipelines and the four main crude oil processing trains on the island. It will also entail debottlenecking of the processing units on Zirku. An initial study of the project has been carried out by Tebodin.

The four-phase contract will involve: identifying the hazardous operations of the existing oil, gas and water separation facilities and the bottlenecks; proposing modifications to increase output; and carrying out detailed engineering for the proposed project.

Zadco - operator of the three offshore oil fields of Upper Zakum, Umm al-Dalkh and Satah - is working on more projects. The US/Canadian VECO is due to complete by late October the concept study for the Upper Zakum water producing facilities project.

The scheme is aimed at handling increased water production at the oil field and will look at ways of separating, treating and disposing of water produced at the three offshore platforms and transporting it to an onshore treatment facility. A tender for the front-end engineering and design (FEED) package is due to be issued by the first quarter of 2006.