Register for MEED's 14-day trial access 

Saudi Aramco has received bids from contractors in its Long-Term Agreement (LTA) pool of offshore service providers for a tender related to the installation of structures at the Arabiyah-Hasbah offshore oil field development in Saudi Arabia.

The tender is number 152 on Aramco’s Contracts Release and Purchase Order (CRPO) system. LTA contractors submitted bids for CRPO 152 by the deadline of 24 September, according to sources.

The scope of work on CRPO 152 covers engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the following structures at the Arabiyah-Hasbah field development:

• Two jackets at the Arabiyah field
• One simultaneous operations-capable jacket at the Hasbah field
• One gas lift production deck module
• A 16-inch subsea pipeline running 5 kilometres (km)
• 13.8kV subsea cables covering 5km

The value of the CRPO 152 contract is estimated to be $250m-$300m, sources told MEED.

MEED previously reported that CRPO 152 was among a batch of four offshore EPCI tenders that Aramco issued to its LTA contractors in August.

Aramco’s LTA pool of offshore service providers comprises the following entities:

• Saipem (Italy)
• McDermott International (US)
• Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon (India) / Subsea7 (UK)
• Dynamic Industries (US)
• NMDC Energy (UAE)
• Lamprell (UAE/Saudi Arabia)
• Sapura Energy (Malaysia)
• Technip Energies (France) / MMHE (Malaysia)
• China Offshore Oil Engineering Company (China)
• Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea)

Robust offshore spending

In late January, the Saudi Energy Ministry directed Aramco to abandon its campaign to expand its oil production spare capacity from 12 million barrels a day (b/d) to 13 million b/d by 2027. As a direct consequence of that government decision, Aramco cancelled the tendering process for at least 15 tenders involving the EPCI of structures at offshore oil and gas fields.

Since that decision, however, Aramco has gone the other way. The Saudi energy giant has already spent an estimated $4bn-$4.5bn year-to-date on offshore EPCI contracts, known in the Aramco ecosystem as CRPOs.

Italian contractor Saipem has been the biggest beneficiary of this robust offshore spending by Aramco, winning all of the CRPOs awarded so far this year.

In early May, Aramco awarded Saipem the contract for CRPO 143, which involves replacing an oil line between the Berri and Manifa oil fields in the kingdom’s Gulf waters.

Aramco then awarded Saipem the contract for CRPO 138, which involves laying a trunkline at the Abu Safah offshore field. The contract is estimated to be worth $500m.

The Milan-listed contractor then scooped three major CRPOs in August, starting with CRPOs 132 and 139, the combined value of which is estimated to be about $1bn. In early September, Saipem began work on the two contracts, which involve the EPCI of structures to upgrade the Marjan, Zuluf and Safaniya offshore field developments.

Just days after awarding CRPOs 132 and 139 to Saipem, Aramco awarded the Italian contractor CRPO 127, a $2bn contract that involves EPCI of topsides and jackets for wellhead platforms, a tie-in platform jacket and topside, rigid flowlines, submarine composite cables and fibre optic cables at the Marjan oil and gas field.

Offshore jobs under bidding

Meanwhile, offshore service providers in Aramco’s LTA pool of contractors are preparing bids for seven more CRPOs.

Aramco issued a batch of four tenders in August – for CRPOs 149, 150, 152 and 153 – which cover the EPCI works on Saudi Arabia’s Arabiyah, Hasbah and Marjan offshore oil field developments. Of these four CRPOs, LTA contractors have submitted bids for CRPOs 149 and 152.

Prior to those four tenders, Aramco issued four other tenders in May to its LTA contractors as part of a project to further expand the Zuluf offshore field development. The main objective of the project is to install several structures at the Zuluf field to maintain and raise its long-term oil and gas production potential.

The combined value of CRPOs 145, 146, 147 and 148 is estimated to be about $4bn. LTA contractors were initially due to submit bids for the four tenders by 22 August, but Aramco eventually extended the deadline to 17 October.

ALSO READ: Aramco spending lifts Saudi upstream market