Bidding nears on major KOC pipeline tenders

19 September 2003
Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) is due to issue tenders by late September for two major engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts covering the replacement of existing underground crude oil and gas flowlines in the south and the southeast (Kuwait, MEED Special Report, 21:2:03).

Six companies have been shortlisted to bid for the contracts, which are estimated to be worth a total of KD 250 million ($830 million). The prequalifiers are understood to be Oslo-based Aker Kvaerner, the UK's AMEC, Paris-based Technip and Foster Wheeler, Kellogg Brown & Rootand Fluor Daniel, all US-based.

The scope of works includes:

Relocation of the underground process piping and flowlines to above ground-level at all the gathering centres (GCs) and gas booster stations (BS);

Supply and installation of gas detection and hydrogen sulphide systems;

Upgrade of the existing 12 million-cubic-feet-a-day (cf/d) condensate recovery units and installation of new two-stage centrifugal compressors, air coolers, condensate pumps and related facilities;

Upgrade of the two-phase, 50,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) and the three-phase, 50,000-150,000-b/d separation system;

Upgrade of the existing desalter units;

Provision of hydrocyclone packages with capacity of 20,000-60,000 barrels of water a day;

Supply and installation of new flare lines, valves and associated facilities.

The contracts - one covering the south, the other the southeast - will take about 30 months to complete. The US' Parsons Engineering Corporation has carried out a preliminary study for the proposed scheme.

The project is part of KOC's rolling programme to improve safety standards at its oil installations, following a series of major accidents since 2002. The largest took place in January that year, when a leak in the oil pipeline caused an explosion at the Rawdhatain oil field in the north. GC 15 and BS 131, located in the north, suffered major damages (MEED 2:2:02).

An inquiry carried out jointly by the then Oil Ministry and KOC had suggested the replacement of existing pipelines throughout Kuwait. 'Safety has been a priority for us. We have replaced the flowlines in the north and the west,' says a KOC official.

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