Shell received bids this week from a number of companies hoping to win a front-end engineering and design contract on the supermajor’s challenging ultra-high-pressure high-temperature Jackdaw project in the UK central North Sea.

Bids were submitted by a 1 April deadline, industry sources told Upstream.

It is expected that two contractors could be selected as early as next month to go forward into a competitive FEED process that will last until about the end of the year.