Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) will make a final investment decision on its $150m oil storage and export facilities project on Sitra island in early April, sources close to the scheme tell MEED.

Bapco will meet with its partners on the project, Saudi-based Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp), Bahrain’s Holding Company for Oil & Gas and Kuwait’s Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) on 6 April to make a final investment decision on the project, a source close to the project tells MEED.

If the investment is approved, the partners will tender an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract covering the construction of the facilities in mid-June, one source says. Up to to 17 engineering firms have been prequalified to bid on the contract.

In January, the company held discussions with the front-end engineering and design (Feed) contractor on the project, Singapore-based Audex. The company prepared the tender documents for the project to clarify a number of design issues. The talks were completed at the end of February.

The UAE’s Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc) carried out the initial feasibility study for the project along with Agicorp and IPG.

The project has been planned since March 2007, when Bapco signed a memorandum of understanding with its partners to build a crude oil trading terminal with an initial storage capacity of 625,000 cubic metres in the north east of the island.