Reuters reported that a Kuwaiti and Saudi JV is close to awarding contracts to recover gas from their shared Hout oilfield with US based McDermott International and South Korea's Daewoo Engineering the lowest bidders.

Industry sources said that the Al Khafji Joint Operations Company set up by state oil firm Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation could announce the winning bids in about 2 weeks. Prospective contractors were given the option to submit combined offshore and onshore project proposals and France's Technip submitted the lowest combined bid.

The individual proposals submitted for the onshore and offshore parts of the project by McDermott and Daewoo were lower than the combined Technip bid. But two sources said KJO would have to bear the additional cost of managing the two projects if it picks two contractors.

The winning firms are expected to build offshore gas gathering facilities, a subsea pipeline to carry 48 million cubic feet of gas per day and onshore gas facilities. India's Larsen and Toubro, Italy's Saipem, CCC and UAE's NPCC, South Korea's GS Samsung Engineering were among firms invited to bid.

(Sourced from Reuters)