PDO awards Oman gas plant expansion project

8 April 2026

 

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded the main contract for a major project to expand the Birba gas station in the Dhofar governorate in southern Oman.

Known as the Budour-Northeast Birba integrated project, PDO intends to execute engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) and commissioning of units to process additional volumes of sour gas.

Egypt’s Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries (Enppi) has won the contract to perform EPC works on the project, according to sources.

The value of the contract awarded by PDO to Enppi is unknown. The Budour-Northeast Birba integrated project was earlier estimated to be worth about $300m.

MEED reported last year on the two-way fight between Enppi and India-based Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon (L&TEH) for the project’s main EPC contract.

MEED previously reported that contractors submitted technical bids for the project by the deadline of 30 January 2025. Aside from Enppi and L&TEH, Greece/Lebanon-headquartered Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and Abu Dhabi’s NMDC Energy were understood to have submitted technical bids, but are thought to have later withdrawn from the race.

Enppi and L&THE submitted commercial bids for the project by the 11 June deadline, MEED previously reported.

After receiving prices, however, PDO appeared to slow down the bid evaluation process for the project’s contract award. The majority state-owned oil and gas producer engaged bidders for discussions and negotiations in the meantime, eventually asking them to extend the validity of their bids until April, one source said.

The greenfield and brownfield scope of work on the project covers the following:

  • New separator train at the Birba gas station to perform three-stage separation
  • New gas dehydration unit
  • Two new gas injection compressors
  • New gas recovery compressor
  • New gas booster compressor
  • Installation of utility units, such as electrical infrastructure, flare system, drainage, etc
  • New high-pressure flare
  • New instrumentation air package
  • New nitrogen system
  • New drainage vessel
  • Debottlenecking of AP flare header by increasing the flare header size
  • Modification inside existing 33kV gas-insulated switchgear in Birba gas station substation
  • Modification of existing 6.6kV switchboard
  • Interfaces with existing control room
  • Civil and piping interfaces within the Birba gas station facility

In December, PDO achieved a final investment decision on another major project to build an integrated facility to produce natural gas from the Budour and Tayseer fields in Oman.

Kuwait‑based Spetco International Petroleum Company (Spetco) won the main design, build, own, operate and maintain (DBOOM) contract for the combined Budour-Tayseer sour gas processing facility project. The value of the contract won by Spetco is $683m.

PDO awarded Spetco the 15-year contract in September, as MEED reported, with the official signing between the parties taking place in December.

The project aims to expand the capacity of the existing gas production and processing facility 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, located about 50 kilometres west of the Tayseer field.

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