Italy's Techint Wins Iraq Oil Field Deal

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 [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires