Dolphin Energy has received technical and commercial bids from eight international firms for the upstream and midstream front end engineering and design (FEED) contracts for a multi-billion-dollar project to deliver Qatari gas abroad, the UAE Offsets Group (UOG) said Monday October 22.
Bidders for the upstream FEED contract are France's Technip, Bechtel and Parsons International of the US, and Foster Wheeler of the US with Sofresld of France, the state-run UOG said.
Fluor Daniel and Kellog Brown Root of the US, the Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner, and Technip with JP Kenney of the US bid for the midstream FEED contract, it said. Both contracts are due to be awarded in early December, UOG said, adding that commercial offers would be opened in early November after completion of the technical evaluation.
The Dolphin project aims to create a regional grid taking gas from Qatar to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman and eventually Pakistan. In a project estimated at an overall cost of up to $10 billion, the gas is to be transported by undersea pipeline from Qatar to the Abu Dhabi coast.
The gas will be distributed inside Abu Dhabi and neighboring Dubai through existing networks and will be transported between the two through a pipeline for which technical bids have already been submitted.
The pipeline will then continue overland to Oman and from there to Pakistan through an undersea pipeline. The extension to Pakistan is expected to cost up to an additional $3 billion.
UOG has said that Dolphin Energy and Qatar would sign the final development and production sharing agreement (DPSA) for the project "shortly." Dolphin Energy will select by early next year an oil major to become a strategic partner in the project. Qatar sits on the world's third largest proven gas reserves, after Russia and Iran, estimated at more than 500 trillion cubic feet (14 trillion cubic meters). — (AFP, Abu Dhabi)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
