McDermott, Daewoo sign gas deals

US-based McDermott International and South Korea's Daewoo Engineering and Construction have signed contracts to build facilities to recover gas from Hout, one of the joint oilfields shared by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, two industry sources said. Al-Khafji Joint Operations - a partnership between state oil firms Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Petroleum - signed the contracts two weeks ago, the sources said. One of the sources said the contracts for onshore and offshore work in the Neutral Zone between the two Gulf OPEC countries were worth a total of around US$240m. Under the contracts, McDermott and Daewoo are to build offshore gas gathering facilities, a subsea pipeline to carry 48m cubic feet of gas per day and associated onshore gas facilities. India's Larsen and Toubro, Italy's Saipem, CCC and UAE's NPCC, South Korea's GS Samsung Engineering and France Technip were among firms invited to bid.