Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) is poring over technical offers from at least three leading international contractors or consortia for work on a substantial offshore contract involving the long-term development phase of its giant Umm Shaif oilfield.

Multiple people with direct knowledge of the tender process told Upstream that the Abu Dhabi state giant is evaluating technical bids recently submitted by up to three players.

“Adnoc has received technical offers and commercial bids are likely to be submitted by November,” one of the people associated with the offshore tender said. The Umm Shaif long-term development project (LTDP-1) is crucial to Abu Dhabi’s ambitious plan to ramp up its oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day by 2030.

Adnoc is progressing with its huge spending plan that involves $132 billion-worth of investments over the next four years, but some of those developments could get delayed by several months due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Sustained low oil and gas prices have prompted the Abu Dhabi state giant to reduce its capital expenditure on key projects and scale down facilities. Despite the challenges being posed by Covid-19, Adnoc is keen to progress on some of its strategic oil and gas developments.

Chief executive Sultan Ahmed al Jaber said earlier this year that the company would “continue to invest responsibly and smartly through the downturn with a firm focus on people, performance, profitability, and efficiency". However, he did not name the specific projects that the company aims to pursue this year.

The company also wants to take advantage of relatively low development and service costs due to reduced tendering activity in the regional engineering, procurement and construction market.

“Adnoc could take advantage of the lower service costs in the depressed market environment to pursue its strategic developments,” a second person with direct knowledge of the Umm Shaif tender person said.

While some crucial oil and gas projects could still progress, Adnoc is also expected to slow down or delay work on several big-ticket developments, where it aims to rework costs or reduce workscope substantially.

Those said to have submitted technical bids to Adnoc for the Umm Shaif project include Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), UK-based Petrofac supported by Malaysia’s Sapura Energy as a sub-contractor and a third group led by Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) with Italy’s Saipem as a sub-contractor, project watchers said.

Upstream reported earlier this year that Adnoc had initiated the tender process for the Umm Shaif LTDP-1 offshore project. The project aims to sustain oil production from the field until 2028. The field is believed to be currently producing around 275,000 bpd.

The project’s contractual workscope includes the removal of bottlenecks at the oilfield's facilities and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

The successful contractor will also be responsible for the engineering, procurement and construction of five new wellhead towers — 12B, 19B, 142A, 153A and 159A.

Also included in the workscope are subsea pipelines and cables, a new riser platform (RP-1), modifications to wellhead towers, tie-ins and the provision of associated facilities.

Three wellhead towers (HP-1, HP-2 and HP-3) — each with 12 slots — and associated facilities also form part of the work on offer.

Adnoc is also, within one or two years, expected to start the multi-billion-dollar second phase of the Umm Shaif long-term development project (LTDP-2).

This programme is intended to boost oil production capacity at the field to as much as 360,000 bpd on a long-term basis.

French giant Total, PetroChina and Italy’s Eni hold a combined 40% stake in the new Umm Shaif and Nasr concession, with Adnoc on 60%.

Field Development

Adnoc runs rule over technical bids for huge offshore oilfield scheme