A front runner has emerged for a sizeable offshore contract from India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) covering the further development of its flagship Mumbai High field off the country’s west coast — after the bidder’s key rival in the tender was disqualified.

ONGC opened just one bid for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation tender for the fifth development phase of Mumbai High, according to two people with direct knowledge of the process.

Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) emerged as the only qualified bidder and quoted a price of $577 million, one person noted, with ONGC disqualifying the bid from a grouping of India’s Carlton Industrial Engineers, Indonesia’s PT Gunanusa and Nigeria’s Westfield Energy.