Saudi Aramco has extended the bid deadline for construction tenders at the planned gas processing plant adjacent to the Fadhili oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

After requests from contractors, the bid deadline has now been put back by two months to 15 June to allow more time to formulate bids.   

The move follows the MEED report in early March that many of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors bidding for the packages at the scheme to split into consortiums.

The budget for the Fadhili plant has also escalated and the initial $5bn estimates have been raised to about $6.5bn. Each package is expected to be valued at more than $2bn. Other work will be tendered in the future, including a large pipeline package.

The Fadhili plant will process sour gas from the Khursaniyah oil field and the Hasbah non-associated gas field. Aramco has ramped up its offshore non-associated gas operations in the Gulf in recent years and is developing several fields in the region. These include the Karan, Hasbah and Arabiyah fields.

Much of the gas contained in the oil major’s Eastern Province hydrocarbon assets is sour, meaning it has a high sulphur content. This makes it more difficult to process than sweeter gas, which has minimal amounts of sulphur.

The contract model will be on a lump-sum turn-key (LSTK) basis, with a percentage of the engineering work and project management to be carried out overseas.

The UK’s Amec Foster Wheeler is carrying out the front-end engineering and design (feed) for the project.