State oil company Saudi Aramco has extended the deadline for companies to bid for offshore work at non-associated gas fields related to its Wasit programme by one month to December 7, industry sources said.

Wasit is Aramco's second project to develop gas fields that are not associated with oil production to meet rising domestic gas demand.

Work at the first, Karan, which will have a capacity of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (cfd), is expected to be completed in 2013. The development of Wasit is split into onshore and offshore construction packages.

Last week, foreign engineering companies submitted  proposals for the onshore packages to build the plant, which will be the largest in the kingdom. A source told Reuters that companies has asked for more time to prepare their Wasit bids.

The work calls for the installation of tie-in platforms along with associated pipelines and cables to provide the feed gas to the Wasit central processing facility, Aramco said in a brief description of the project on its website.

The facility would process 2.5 billion cfd of gas from the Arabiyah and Hasbah offshore sour gas fields when it comes online in 2014.

Aramco's gas reserves stood at 275.2 trillion cubic feet in 2009, of which 50 percent was not associated with oil output.-Reuters