The local/European Akakus Oil Operations has sent out the formal invitation to bid on a deal to build a $250m oil and gas separation plant at the Murzuq basin in southwest Libya.

The company, a joint venture of Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC), Austria’s OMV, France’s Total and Spain’s Repsol, released the bid documents to the companies on 3 March.

The engineering, procurement and construction deal covers the construction of a 100,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) plant to separate crude oil from the gas that comes out of the oil field. The winning bidder will build two 50,000 b/d separation trains, storage tanks, oil shipping facilities, and gas compression and export facilities.

Akakus has asked the firms to submit technical proposals for the scheme by May, with commercial bids due in June. However, sources at prequalified firms tell MEED they will push for more time.

Firms prequalified to bid on the deal include Paris-based Technip, Italy’s Saipem, Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company, and Japan’s JGC Corporation.

The US’ Foster Wheeler is the project management consultant for the scheme and was also the front-end engineering and design contractor for the plant.

The plant will take oil and gas produced at the IR field in the Murzuq Basin. The partners are developing this jointly and Repsol is acting as operator.