Opec-members Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have delayed bidding for onshore and offshore gas work contracts at the Hout oil field until early September, industry sources said on Wednesday.

Bidding was originally due to close on June 6, but was later extended to August 1 and has now been pushed back to September 5, sources said.

The project involves building offshore gas gathering facilities, pipelines and onshore gas facilities. Contractors bidding for the onshore and offshore portions of the project can submit combined proposals.

The bid extension was widely expected as contractors had asked for a delay of at least four weeks. But they hoped to get a few more days to submit bids as the new closing date coincides with the end of the Eid holiday after Ramadan which this year falls in August.

"It should be a week or 10 days after Ramadan," said a source who declined to be identified.

The project developed by the Al-Khafji Joint Operations Co (KJO) is to help recover associated gas which is currently flared off.

KJO was set up by Aramco Gulf Operations, a subsidiary of state oil firm Saudi Aramco , and Kuwait Gulf Oil Co (KGOC), a unit of KPC.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have boosted output capacity from their shared Neutral Zone -- which includes fields of al-Khafji, Lulu, Hout and Dorra  -- to 610,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Contractors await the outcome of bidding for another gas and NGL export facilities they submitted to KGOC. South Korea's Samsung Engineering, France's Technip , Italy's Saipem were among companies that bid for the project. - Reuters