The Bahrain National Gas Company (Banagas) has shortlisted three companies for a $100m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a gas compressor station.

The firms shortlisted for the contract are the UK’s Petrofac, India’s Larsen & Toubro and Japan’s JGC Corporation.

“The list is down to three now and [Banagas] has called them all in for clarification meetings,” says a source familiar with the deal. “It’s still too early to call for a frontrunner.”

The gas compressor will be constructed at the company’s complex in Sitra and will have a capacity of 65 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) when completed. The EPC contract will also include the front-end engineering and design (Feed) (MEED 28:1:11).

The mandate for the winning bidder will include the design of the gas compressor, along with a gas turbine driver, a series of pipelines, associated gas gathering line, power supply and all connected process equipment and utilities. 

The project has been scaled back from the initial plans, which involved the construction of seven compressors to boost the Banagas plant’s existing capacity of 280 million cf/d to 530 million cf/d by 2020. The budget has also decreased according to the scope of works, from an initial figure of about $300m.