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PDO awards Budour-Tayseer gas project contract

24 September 2025

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded the main contract for a project to build an integrated facility to produce natural gas from the Budour and Tayseer fields in Oman.

The project aims to expand the capacity of the existing gas production and processing facilities at Tayseer. It represents the second development phase of the gas field.

Through the project, PDO is also seeking to appraise, produce and process sweet gas from the Budour field, which is about 50 kilometres west of the Tayseer field.

Kuwait‑based Spetco International Petroleum Company (Spetco) has won the main design, build, own, operate and maintain (DBOOM) contract for the combined Budour-Tayseer sour gas processing facility project, sources say.

MEED recently reported that Spetco was the frontrunner for the DBOOM contract, with PDO expected to issue the official award within days.

The following firms, among others, are understood to have submitted proposals to PDO:

The three developers originally submitted proposals for the project by 30 November last year.

PDO issued the DBOOM tender for the Budour‑Tayseer combined gas processing facility project in Q1 2024, after completing a prequalification exercise in June 2023.

MEED previously reported that PDO suspended the DBOOM tendering exercise earlier this year and tested an alternative execution model, initiating a front‑end engineering and design (feed) to engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) competition.

PDO floated a prequalification document for the feed-to-EPC contest in March. Contractors submitted responses to the prequalification questionnaire by the deadline of 27 April.

The feed-to-EPC competition model involves the project operator selecting contractors to execute feed work and then choosing the contractor with the most competitive feed proposal to execute EPC works on the project, while also compensating the other contestants for their work.

However, PDO did not select contractors to take part in the FEED‑to‑EPC contest and is understood to have cancelled the exercise, sources told MEED. The client eventually reverted to the DBOOM model.

Tayseer and Budour field development

The Tayseer field was discovered in November 2014 after the successful well-testing of Tay-1. It is approximately 50km north of the Birba field and 20km west of the Al-Noor production station.

Since the Tayseer field is part of the A1C platform carbonate, which has proven aquifer support in the Budne A1C field, some formation water production can be expected.

PDO developed the Tayseer field through a project in 2016. US-based Exterran was awarded a design, build and operate contract in 2017.

Currently, three Tayseer wells are being processed in the existing Tayseer early development facility and sweet gas from the facility is being exported to PDO’s South Oman gas pipeline.

As part of the expansion phase, new production wells will be drilled at Tayseer. The produced gas will be processed at a new sour gas processing facility located at Budour.

The Budour A4C non-associated gas field was discovered in 2001 and appraised until 2009. The field has never been appraised since. The development concept for the Budour non-associated gas field involves depletion through a standalone sour gas processing facility, with sweet gas exported to the South Oman gas pipeline.

No formation water is expected, so only the condensation water requires handling and disposal. New production wells are to be drilled at Budour and production from those wells will be processed at the planned new sour gas processing facility.

The DBOOM contractor was required to provide the following on-plot facilities and services as part of the project:

  • Inlet production/ test manifold
  • Well testing
  • Inlet separation
  • Sour gas processing facility, including export gas compressors
  • Sulphur recovery and storage
  • Crude de-salting
  • Condensate stabilisation
  • Condensate storage and export
  • Produced water treatment
  • Storage, export and raw water treatment with all the associated plant utilities
  • Controls and instrumentation

The planned combined Budour-Tayseer sour gas processing facility is projected to have a capacity of 78.39 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) and unstabilised condensate of 1,167 cubic metres a day (cm/d). The facility will handle gas exports of about 70 million cf/d, stabilised condensate exports of 950 cm/d and will have a water handling capacity of 340 cm/d.

Outside the scope of services under the original DBOOM contract, PDO intended to build off-plot facilities to support the Budour-Tayseer combined gas processing facility. These were:

  • Wellhead hook-ups
  • Sour gas flowlines from the wellhead to the on-plot facilities
  • Remote manifold station at the Tayseer field
  • Wash water distribution network from the on-plot facility boundaries to gas production wellheads
  • Sour gas production pipeline from the Tayseer field to the Budour field
  • Sweet gas export pipeline from the on-plot facility to the Salalah gas line
  • Condensate export pipeline from the on-plot facility to the main oil line
  • Produced water pipeline from the on-plot facility to the Marmul water treatment plant in southeastern Oman for further processing and deep water disposal
  • Raw water supply line from the water supply well to the on-plot facility and electrical overhead line from the PDO grid to the DBOOM facility.
ALSO READ: Oman makes strides forward in global LNG race

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Indrajit Sen

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