By Hassan Hafidh
Special to Dow Jones Newswires
Techint Engineering and Construction (TCNT.YY), an Italian
company, has won a $387.8 million contract to build housing for
workers at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, the Iraqi council of
ministers said Wednesday.
The field in southern Iraq was producing 195,000 barrels a day
before it was awarded in 2009 to the Eni SpA (E) group, which also
includes U.S. Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) and Korea Gas Corp.
(036460.SE), or Kogas.
Production has since reached 300,000 barrels a day and is
expected to rise to 1.125 million barrels a day in 2017 after
processing facilities are expanded.
Techint will build a village for workers and a regional office
for operating partners in the field, the ministers said in a
statement, adding that work in the project would take 30 months to
finish.
The statement gave no further details and Techint officials
would not comment.
It isn't known which other companies competed with Techint to
win the project.
Last June, the Eni-led group awarded U.S. giant Weatherford
International Ltd. (WFT) a crucial $843 million deal to build six
initial production facilities, each with 50,000 barrels a day
capacity. The facilities would boost oil production from Zubair by
some 300,000 barrels a day.
Italy's SICIM SpA was awarded last year a $358.8 million deal to
build and install pipelines for the field.
Write to Hassan Hafidh at hassan.hafidh@dowjones.com
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