The companies are Fluor Daniel, Foster Wheeler Corporationand Bechtel, all US-based, and the UK's AMEC. Bids are due to be returned by 30 January. Six companies applied for prequalification by the end-November deadline (MEED 7:12:01).

The estimated $1,400 million complex will have a nameplate capacity of 650,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of benzene and paraxylene and 500,000 t/y of monomers (MEED 31:8:01).

The project will use about 1.9 million t/y of naphtha as feedstock, to be supplied from the Kuwait National Petroleum Company oil refineries at Mina Abdullah, Mina al-Ahmadi and Shuaiba. PIC will be the sole owner of the plant, which is scheduled to be commissioned by 2005.

Shuaiba is one of two greenfield projects proposed by PIC that gained approval from Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in late July. The other scheme, dubbed Equate II, is to have a nameplate capacity of 850,000 t/y of ethylene, 450,000 t/y of polypropylene and 430,000 t/y of ethylene glycol. The estimated $2,000 million project will be set up as a joint venture between PIC and a foreign company (MEED 3:8:01).