MOSCOW. Feb 24 (Interfax) - Gazprom Neft , the operator for developing Iraq's Badra oil field, has chosen Britain's Petrofac as the contractor for building a central oil collection and treatment point at the field, Gazprom Neft said in a press release.

The $329-million EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract entails designing, engineering, equipment procurement, constructing, pre-commissioning and commissioning the facility.

The central oil collection and treatment point will comprise three lines of oil treatment capable of processing 60,000 barrels a day each. Each line will take around 18 months to build, and the first is set to be launched in the second half of 2013, when Badra is supposed to start producing oil.

The project will be launched into its full 180,000 barrel-per-day capacity in the second half of 2015. Petrofac will also be responsible for constructing a pumping station, reservoirs for storing oil, an oil metering unit and other necessary technical equipment.

This year, Gazprom Neft will continue summing up the results of tenders for building infrastructure at Badra. It will select contractors for building a 170-kilometer-long oil pipeline to the Garraf field, a gas collection and treatment point capable of turning out 1.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, a gas pipeline, a system of inter-settlement pipelines and general public infrastructure.

The Badra field is located in the Wassit Province in Eastern Iraq with estimated reserves of 3 billion barrels of oil. The contract to develop the Badra oil deposit was signed with the Iraqi government in January 2010 following a tender in December 2009. The participating companies are lead operator Gazprom Neft (30%), Korea's Kogas (22.5%), Malaysia's Petronas (15%) and Turkey's