Tender for Construction of N. Pars Jackets Underway
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the contractor of Iran’s North Pars gas field project in the Persian Gulf, has recently called for a tender to construct 4 jackets for the project.

The winners of this tender, which are still in its technical evaluation stage, are expected to be named by at most the end of October.

The locals IOEC, ISOICO, SADRA and SAFF are the companies participating in the tender.

Each winning company is supposed to be assigned 2 of the jackets to build. The maximum period for the project is foreseen to be 11 months.

CNOOC is expected to start drilling the gas field wells, once the installation of the jackets is accomplished.

NIDC’s ‘Shahid Modares’ drilling rig which has been recently restored is to be utilized for drilling of 17 wells in the gas field in a five-year period. The 89-million-euro deal for this project was signed between NIDC and POGC in February 2007.

The preliminary agreement for development of North Pars gas field and constructing LNG plants, worth $16 billion, was signed between NIOC and CNOOC in late 2006. Of the total $16 billion investment, $5 billion is for the upstream portion and $11 billion for building downstream facilities, including liquefaction plants.

North Pars gas field, located 85 kilometres north of the giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, has about 80 tcf of gas in place and its development project is planned to be executed in four phases to produce some 4.8 bcf/d of gas.