At least four leading international contracting players or consortia have emerged as potential front runners for multiple offshore engineering, procurement, construction and installation contracts for Saudi Aramco’s giant Safaniyah oilfield expansion.

The new expansion phase at Safaniyah, the largest offshore oilfield in the world, is crucial to Aramco’s ambition to increase its oil production capacity to 13 million barrels per day by 2027, up from the existing 12 million bpd.