Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has started the chase for a key front-end engineering and design contract for the first phase of its Lower Zakum long-term development programme, which is likely to be worth billions of dollars.

Well-placed contracting sources told Upstream that the Abu Dhabi state-owned giant recently sought enquiries from leading international engineering consultants to participate in the FEED tender process for the offshore asset.

“They (Adnoc) have issued expressions of interest and are pre-qualifying contractors,” one source confirmed.

The Lower Zakum oilfield is among Adnoc’s largest offshore assets and is understood to be producing about 425,000 barrels per day of crude.

The long-term development of the Lower Zakum and Upper Zakum fields is crucial to Adnoc's strategy to increase its oil production capacity to 5 million bpd by 2030.

The Lower Zakum Long Term Development Phase 1 (LZ LTDP-1) project aims to sustain the field’s plateau production rate of 450,000 bpd from 2025 to 2027 and further ramp it up to 500,000 bpd by 2028 and sustain that for the next three years by utilising synergies with Upper Zakum facilities, sources said.

Adnoc plans to further extend Lower Zakum's plateau production beyond 2031 through additional facilities, which will be part of future phase development plans (LTDP-2 and 3) that are likely to be taken up at a later stage.

Several leading international consultants are expected to queue up for the LZ LTDP-1 FEED project.

Some of the players likely to show interest include Canada’s SNC-Lavalin; KBR, McDermott International and Bechtel of the US; UK-based players Petrofac, Wood and TechnipFMC; Australia’s Worley; Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC); Saipem of Italy and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas.

The final shortlist of participating contractors is likely to be drawn up over the next few weeks, sources have suggested.

The development concept for the LZ LTDP-1 project is likely to be centred around two new artificial islands (Island-G and Island-D) integrated with several existing and new offshore facilities.

The work related to the construction of two artificial islands is being separately carried out by Adnoc.

The Lower Zakum LTDP-1 FEED workscope would include topsides facilities on the two new artificial islands, one existing Island (UZCI), one new wellhead tower and modifications/tie-ins with existing offshore facilities.

The production fluids from Island-G’s infill wells and existing and new wellhead towers are likely to be processed at a central processing complex on Island-G, which will serve as the main offshore oil gathering and primary processing centre for the Lower Zakum field.

Island-G will have all the facilities required to process the oil, gas and produced water including separation, oil handling, gas processing including treatment units, gas compression and several other associated surface facilities.

Multiple segments of offshore pipelines from the existing and envisaged new facilities are also likely to be a part of the project’s scope, sources said.

The separated oil will be sent to Das Island for stabilisation and export, where three new oil trains are envisaged to handle additional production from Lower Zakum.

The Lower Zakum offshore field lies in the central part of the Arabian Gulf, about 65 kilometres northwest of Abu Dhabi.

Industry sources have said Lower Zakum’s total proven reserves could be more than 17.2 billion barrels but this could not be independently confirmed by Upstream.

Adnoc holds a 60% stake in the Lower Zakum concession, with Japan’s Inpex as the lead partner holding a 10% stake.

The other minority shareholders in the offshore asset are French giant Total on 5%, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) having 10%, Italy’s Eni with 5% and a consortium of Indian companies led by ONGC Videsh holding the remaining 10%.

Field Development

Adnoc starts chase for Lower Zakum contract