Saudi Aramco awards services contract for its Marjan offshore oilfield

Saudi Aramco has awarded an integrated services contract for its Marjan oilfield – the first of three major offshore expansions in Saudi Arabia – to Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), it was announced on Tuesday.

Under the contract, BHGE will provide drilling services, coiled tubing services and drilling fluids engineering services in Marjan.

BHGE’s provision of drilling services will include logging-while-drilling, reservoir navigation services, and rotary steerable services.

Work will start this month with an aim to increase the field’s capacity, a statement said.

The size of the deal was not disclosed.

BHGE has a large local footprint in Saudi, which includes an assembly, maintenance and overhaul workshop; a drill bits manufacturing facility that exports to over 40 countries; a completions and well intervention facility; a pressure control facility with the manufacturing done entirely in the kingdom; the Dhahran Technology Center that has over 15 R&D projects and has filed over 30 patents; an artificial lift facility that partners with 120 local suppliers; a turbomachinery processes and services facility; and one of the largest chemical blending plants in the kingdom.

Mohammed Y. Al Qahtani, senior vice president of Upstream at Saudi Aramco, said: “The Marjan oilfield is one of the major upstream developments this year that will contribute to the kingdom’s oil production strengths, helping maintain capacity and meet domestic and global demand.”

The expansion of the Marjan oilfield is estimated to have a develoment value of over $10bn.

In February, Aramco awarded a five-year contract for engineering and project management services at Marjan to British energy services company Wood.