The partners behind the mixed-feed cracker project at the Al-Sejeel petrochemicals complex in Qatar are expected to extend the deadline for both the second technical bid and the commercial bid.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) have already awarded Italy’s Tecnimont the front-end engineering and design (feed) for the technical package and the US’ Bechtel will be carrying out the project management consultancy (PMC) for the scheme.

The bidders are made up of the technology providers plus their selected engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partners. The terms of the contract will involve both front-end engineering design, technology provision and full EPC of the scheme. The bidding consortiums are:

• CB&I Lummus/Daelim Industrial (US/South Korea)
• KBR/GS Engineering & Construction (US/South Korea)
• Linde/Petrofac (Germany/UK)
• Technip/CTCI  (France/Taiwan)

The preliminary submission was set for December with the second technical submission date set for 17 February followed by the commercial submission date set for 16 April. However, sources indicate that the first technical submission was submitted on 6 January, the second technical submission has now been put back to 31 March and the commercial bid is also likely to be extended.

“The bidders need more time to submit proposals,” says a petrochemicals industry source. “This is a usual scenario when you have a cracker of this size.”

The Al-Sejeel project is a world-scale complex that will produce more than 3 million tonnes a year (t/y) of chemicals when completed.

The scheme will produce 1.4 million t/y of ethylene when completed, which will feed other units at the proposed complex. A further 850,000 t/y of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), 430,000 t/y of linear low-density polyethylene (LDPE), 760,000 t/y of polypropylene and 83,000 t/y of butadiene will be produced.

The partners signed technology licences in June with two US firms: Univation Technologies for the polyethylene units and Dow Chemical for the polypropylene units. Completion is expected in 2018.

The cracker forms part of an ambitious strategy by Doha to increase petrochemicals output from the current 9 million t/y to 23 million t/y by 2020. QP is also planning the Al-Karaana petrochemicals complex, a joint venture with the UK/Dutch Shell Group.