On Behalf of

Business & Finance Club - Oil and Gas - Abu Dhabi: Oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has awarded contracts worth almost $5.5 billion (Dh20.1 billion) to more than three companies to provide various services.

Korea's Samsung Engineering and Italy's Saipem, Europe's biggest provider of oilfield services by market value, have won an aggregate of about $5 billion in contracts for gas processing, sulphur recovery and other oil and gas services.

Saipem won three contracts worth $3.5 billion while Samsung said it secured a separate contract for $1.5 billion.

Saipem's contracts are for $1.9 billion for gas processing, $1.45 billion for sulphur recovery and $196 million for product pipelines. Samsung will build utility and offsite facilities needed for the project.

A group comprising Tecnicas Reunidas and Punj Lloyd Group also won a joint contract worth $463 million for gas gathering in the project.

Shah sour-gas project

Adnoc said on Thursday it is pressing ahead with the Shah sour-gas project after ConocoPhillips pulled out of the joint venture earlier in the week. Development of the Shah field is estimated to cost $10 billion, Saif Ahmad Al Ghafli, chief executive officer of the project, said in March. Shah will process 1 billion cubic feet (28 million cubic metres) of sour gas (natural gas containing significant amounts of hydrogen sulphide) a day into more than 500 million cubic feet of fuel and 10,000 tonnes of sulphur, he said.

Fluor Corp. and CH2M Hill Companies unit Veco Corp. signed project management contracts for the Shah project on Thursday. Fluor officials couldn't be reached for comment.

ConocoPhillips, which would have been a 40 per cent stakeholder in the Shah venture, withdrew on April 28.