The bidders include South Korea's Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company, Italy-based Techint, Canada's SNC Lavalin, Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas and US-based ABB Lummus Global. A contract award is due by early December.

The contract is the last to be tendered under the Hawiyah natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery programme. In March, Aramco signed six LSTK contracts, covering the construction of the grassroots Hawiyah NGL plant and the expansion of the Juaymah gas fractionation plant, worth a total of about $2,200 million.

The US' Jacobs Engineeringis the overall project management consultant (PMC) on the Hawiyah NGL recovery programme.

A tender is also due to be issued in late October for another gas plant expansion project at Yanbu. About 11 international contractors submitted prequalification proposals in July for the contract, including South Korea's Daelim Industrial Company, CTCI of Taiwan, Japan's JGC Corporation,Italy's Snamprogetti, Hyundai E&C, Techint, SNC, Tecnicas Reunidas and ABB.

The estimated $250 million-300 million expansion will raise total fractionation capacity at the plant to 555 million cf/d. The facilities are due to be commissioned by late 2008.