By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Feb. 8 -- Saudi Aramco has signed a contract with Belgium dredging contractor Jan De Nul for work that will aid development of offshore Manifa oil and gas field, which is expected to produce 900,000 b/d of Arabian Heavy crude and 120 MMscfd of gas by 2011.
Jan De Nul will carry out dredging in the Persian Gulf before building 27 drilling islands and a 41-km causeway to provide Saudi Aramco a direct link from the coast to the manmade, shallow-water offshore drilling islands.
Jan de Nul's contract, scheduled for completion in 2009, is the first lump-sum turnkey contract to be signed under Saudi Aramco's Manifa development program.
In October 2006 Saudi Aramco awarded a front-end engineering and design and project management services contract to two units of Foster Wheeler Ltd. FEED completion is expected in the third quarter (OGJ Online, Nov. 6, 2006, Newsletter).
