Iraq’s Council of Ministers has endorsed the award of the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP-ITT-05) to South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction (Hyundai E&C). The scope of work covers engineering, procurement, supply, construction, and commissioning of a major seawater treatment facility at the Ar-Ratawi oil field.
The approval, made during the 32nd cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mohammed S. Al-Sudani, also ratifies the outcomes of price negotiations and allows for the exemption of procurement procedures under Government Contracts Implementation Instructions No. 2 of 2014. According to the official statement, this step was taken to address measures applied between 2018 and 2021 under relevant financial authorities.
The Common Seawater Supply Project is one of four sub-projects within the $10 billion Gas Growth Integrated Project (GGIP), spearheaded by a consortium of TotalEnergies (45 percent), Basrah Oil Company (30 percent), and QatarEnergy (25 percent). The facility, to be located between the Khor Zubair and Umm Qasr ports, is designed with an initial treatment capacity of 5 million barrels of seawater per day.
The treated water will be transported via pipelines to the Zubair, Rumaila, Majnoon, West Qurna, and Ar-Ratawi oil fields. This will help sustain reservoir pressure while reducing reliance on fresh water currently sourced from rivers and aquifers. The transition is expected to release 250,000 cubic metres of freshwater daily for agriculture and irrigation, easing regional water stress.
Back in May 2019, South Korean media revealed that Hyundai E&C had received a letter of intent from the Basrah Oil Company (BOC) for a $2.4 billion seawater supply facility. Reuters later reported in June 2019 that the project was still pending ministerial approval.
GGIP gathers momentum
The latest approval follows a series of other GGIP-linked awards in 2025.
Just last week, Shanghai-listed China Petroleum Engineering Co., Ltd. (CPE), a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), announced that its unit, China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company (CPP), had secured a letter of award from BOC for the Basra Province Seawater Pipeline EPC Project.
In its stock exchange disclosure, the company confirmed the deal was valued at $2.524 billion, though not yet formally signed. The contract scope includes trunk pipelines from the seawater treatment plants to interconnecting stations, branch pipelines to oilfield distribution stations, and supporting surface facilities. The execution period is 54 months, consisting of 42 months for design, procurement, construction, and commissioning, followed by 12 months for operations, maintenance, and training.
Earlier in June 2025, CPE also disclosed that CPP had won the $294 million Ar-Ratawi Gas Midstream Pipeline contract from TotalEnergies. This sub-project of GGIP focuses on reducing flaring and capturing gas from multiple fields for processing and transportation to power plants, thereby strengthening the region’s electricity supply.
The EPSCC contract will be implemented over 36 months and covers approximately 114 kilometres of 26-inch sour gas pipeline, 83 kilometres of 20-inch sour gas pipeline, three export lines, and associated valve stations linking Majnoon and West Qurna II fields to the Ar-Ratawi gas processing facility.
The broader GGIP framework targets the recovery of flared gas from three oil fields, provision of gas to power generation, development of a 1 GW solar power plant to feed the Basra grid, and the creation of seawater treatment capacity to support enhanced oil recovery operations.
Source: Zawya