Saudi Aramco has handed US engineering firm KBR a fresh contract to upgrade offshore facilities at its giant Marjan field in the Gulf. If you follow how Saudi Arabia keeps growing its oil and gas machine, this deal is a good reminder of just how much money and work still flows from offshore energy projects across the GCC.
The contract was awarded on 15 October 2026, and it builds on an existing relationship Aramco already has with the Houston-based company. It is a small but telling sign of where the region’s energy investment is heading next.
What exactly is KBR being asked to do at Marjan?
KBR will provide engineering and project execution services to support upgrades at the Marjan offshore field, one of Aramco’s major oil and gas assets in Gulf waters. The work falls under Aramco’s existing general engineering services-plus (GES+) agreement with KBR, which is essentially a standing arrangement for ongoing technical support rather than a one-off job.
The scope covers offshore processing, gas compression and power infrastructure facilities. A source told MEED that the work will specifically target upgrades to gas-oil separation plants (GOSPs) 2 and 3 at Marjan. These plants are where crude oil coming out of the wells gets separated from gas and water before it moves on for further processing.
KBR said the project should help Aramco maintain Marjan’s production capacity as the field continues to develop. It is also meant to improve gas processing capabilities and strengthen the long-term performance of offshore assets. Part of that will involve bringing in digital technologies, automation and upgraded power systems, the kind of modernisation that is increasingly standard across the region’s energy sector as operators try to squeeze more reliability and efficiency out of ageing offshore infrastructure.
Why the Marjan field matters far beyond this one contract
To understand why this deal is worth paying attention to, it helps to look at the bigger picture. Back in 2019, Aramco committed around $15bn in capital expenditure for a major upgrade at Marjan under what is called the Marjan increment programme.
The goal of that programme is ambitious. It aims to lift the field’s oil production capacity by 300,000 barrels a day of Arabian Medium crude, taking total capacity to 800,000 barrels a day. On top of that, it is designed to process 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day and produce an extra 360,000 barrels a day of ethane and natural gas liquids.
That is a huge amount of new supply coming from a single offshore field, and it explains why Aramco keeps awarding engineering and construction work there. The increment programme itself is made up of roughly 20 engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages. The scope mainly involves building a new GOSP and 24 offshore oil, gas and water-injection platforms.
For the UAE and wider GCC, this kind of project matters on a few levels. It shows Saudi Arabia continuing to pour capital into offshore energy infrastructure even as the region talks more about diversification and clean energy. It also keeps a steady pipeline of work flowing to international engineering firms and, by extension, to the contractors, suppliers and service companies across the Gulf that plug into these supply chains.
There is also a technology angle worth noting. The push to integrate digital systems, automation and smarter power infrastructure into an offshore field like Marjan reflects a broader shift happening across GCC energy and industrial projects. Operators are not just adding capacity anymore, they are trying to make existing assets run smarter and last longer. That trend ties into the kind of digital transformation stories we regularly cover in our innovation news section, where energy, automation and new technology increasingly overlap.
What to watch next is how quickly the remaining EPC packages under the Marjan increment programme get awarded, and whether more international engineering firms land similar GES+ style contracts from Aramco. For now, the KBR deal is a reminder that Gulf offshore energy projects remain a major source of contracts, jobs and investment, even as the region pushes forward on newer industries. You can read the original report from MEED for more on the contract details.
