Prospective bidders for the contract include Abu Dhabi's Al-Jaber Energy Services, with Paris-based Technip, Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC), Japan's Marubeni Corporation, the local Medgulf Construction Company, Sharjah-based Petrofac Internationaland Turkey's Tekfen. The contract primarily covers large-scale-diameter pipeline work to and from the two new installations.

The Ras Laffan common seawater cooling system has capacity of about 300,000 cubic metres an hour (cm/h), although a phase 2 expansion is planned. Qatar Petroleumis close to selecting a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contractor for the expansion, which will add 570,000 cm/h of new capacity.

The bidders for the FEED are Switzerland's Electrowatt Engineering Services, US-based Foster Wheeler, the UK's Mott MacDonaldand Technip. The FEED will take about six months to complete.