India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has announced that QatarEnergy LNG has officially awarded its subsidiary, Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon (LTEH), the main contract for the COMP4 package of the second phase of its North Field Production Sustainability (NFPS) project.

L&T described the contract as “ultra-mega”, a term it uses to denote values exceeding INR150bn ($1.75bn), adding that it is the single-largest contract it has ever won.

MEED recently reported that QatarEnergy LNG, a subsidiary of state enterprise QatarEnergy, had selected LTEH – through a letter of intent – for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) works on the NFPS COMP4 package, which is estimated to be valued between $4bn and $5bn.

L&T, in its statement on 26 March, said that the scope of work encompasses the engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation and commissioning of two offshore compression complexes, each comprising large offshore platforms with compression and power generation facilities, living quarters, flare platforms, interconnected bridges and other associated structures, to be located approximately 80 kilometres off the northeast coast of Qatar.

Sources previously told MEED that the objective of the combined 4A and 4B package (COMP4), which is the fourth package of the second phase of the NFPS project, is the EPCI of two large gas compression systems that will be known as CP8S and CP4N, each weighing 25,000-35,000 tonnes. The contract scope also includes compression platforms, flare gas platforms and other associated structures.

The other contractors that bid for the package are understood to include Italian contractor Saipem and US-based McDermott International.

North Field Production Sustainability

QatarEnergy’s North Field liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion programme requires the state enterprise to pump large volumes of gas from the North Field offshore reserve to feed the three phases of the estimated $40bn-plus programme.

QatarEnergy has already invested billions of dollars in engineering, procurement and construction works on the two phases of the NFPS project, which aims to maintain steady gas feedstock for the North Field LNG expansion phases.

The second NFPS phase will mainly involve building gas compression facilities to sustain and gradually increase gas production from Qatar’s offshore North Field gas reserve over the long term.

Saipem has secured work worth a total of $8.5bn on the second NFPS phase.

QatarEnergy LNG awarded Saipem a $4.5bn order in October 2022 to build and install gas compression facilities. The main scope of work on the package, which is known as EPCI 2, covers two large gas compression complexes that will comprise decks, jackets, topsides, interconnecting bridges, flare platforms, living quarters and interface modules.

The gas compression complexes – CP65 and CP75 – will weigh 62,000 tonnes and 63,000 tonnes, respectively, and will be the largest fixed steel jacket compression platforms ever built.

Following that, Saipem won combined packages COMP3A and COMP3B of the NFPS project’s second phase in September last year.

The scope of work on the combined packages encompasses the EPCI for six platforms, approximately 100km of corrosion-resistant alloy rigid subsea pipelines of 28-inches and 24-inches diameter, 100km of subsea composite cables, 150km of fibre optic cables and several other subsea units.

Separately, QatarEnergy LNG awarded McDermott the contract for the NFPS second phase package known as EPCI 1, or COMP1, in July 2023. The scope of work on the estimated $1bn-plus contract is to install a subsea gas pipeline network at the North Field gas development.

NFPS first phase

Saipem is also executing the EPCI works on the entire first phase of the NFPS project, which consists of two main packages.

Through the first phase of the NFPS scheme, QatarEnergy LNG aims to increase the early gas field production capacity of the North Field offshore development to 110 million tonnes a year.

QatarEnergy LNG, formerly Qatargas, awarded Saipem the contract for the EPCI package in February 2021. The package is the larger of the two NFPS phase one packages and has a value of $1.7bn.

Saipem’s scope of work on the EPCI package encompasses building several offshore facilities for extracting and transporting natural gas, including platforms, supporting and connecting structures, subsea cables and anti-corrosion internally clad pipelines.

The scope of work also includes decommissioning a pipeline and other significant modifications to existing offshore facilities.

In addition, in April 2021, QatarEnergy LNG awarded Saipem two options for additional work within the EPCI package, worth about $350m.

QatarEnergy LNG awarded Saipem the second package of the NFPS phase one project, estimated to be worth $1bn, in March 2021.

Saipem’s scope of work on the package, which is known as EPCL, mainly covers installing three offshore export trunklines running almost 300km from their respective offshore platforms to the QatarEnergy LNG north and south plants located in Ras Laffan Industrial City.

Saipem performed the front-end engineering and design work on the main production package of the first phase of the NFPS as part of a $20m contract that it was awarded in January 2019. This provided a competitive advantage to the Italian contractor in its bid to win the package.