South Korea’s Daewoo has pulled out of the tender process for Libya’s 6J North Gialo oil field development project, increasing uncertainty over its future, according to industry sources. Daewoo had formed a partnership with Egypt’s Petrojet to participate in the tender process.

The only other company to submit a bid for the project was UK-based Petrofac, which filed for administration in October last year. In September last year, MEED revealed that two bids had been submitted for the project and were under evaluation.

Contractors now believe that the client on the project, Libya’s Waha Oil Company, may cancel the existing tender and retender the project due to problems with the two bidders.

Waha is a joint venture of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), France’s TotalEnergies and US-based ConocoPhillips.

The 6J North Gialo field development project is part of a series of tenders that are collectively expected to be worth $1bn.

The three projects are:

NC98

Gialo 3

6J North Gialo

All three projects will develop Libyan reservoirs that have not yet been tapped.

The 6J North Gialo project was the first to be tendered and it is expected to be followed by NC98, with the Gialo 3 project likely to be tendered last.

Together, the projects are expected to double Waha’s production from about 300,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil to 600,000 b/d. The Waha concession covers 13 million acres.