Qatar’s Laffan Refinery Company has received bids for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the $1bn phase two expansion at its complex in Ras Laffan.

Bids were received on January 5 for the expansion, which will process an additional 146,000 barrels a day (b/d) of condensate recovered from the one of the world’s largest non-associated gas fields, the North Field. 

“The winning contractor is expected to be announced in late-January or early-February,” says an oil and gas executive familiar with the scheme.

Technip is currently carrying out the front-end engineering and design for the project.

Qatar currently sells off a large proportion of its condensate raw to international customers, so it is keen to add as much value as possible by processing it into a range of downstream products.

The phase two project will double the capacity of the current refinery. The product mix is expected to remain the same. The Laffan refinery currently produces 61,000 b/d of naphtha, 52,000 b/d of jet fuel, 24,000 b/d of gasoil and 9,000 b/d of liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

The complex will also add a benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) unit that will process aromatics feedstock to be used in the domestic petrochemicals sector. The offtake is expected to fuel a range of new petrochemicals industries in Qatar. MEED reported in early April that Qatar Petroleum (QP) was tendering the feasibility study for the proposed Ras Laffan Aromatics plant that will be built close to the Laffan refinery complex. 

QP is the leading shareholder of the Laffan refinery with a holding of 51 per cent. The remaining shares are shared between several international companies, with the US’ ExxonMobil, France’s Total, Malaysia’s Idemitsu, and Japan’s Cosmo with Japan’s Mitsui and Marubeni, each retaining 4.5 per cent ownership.

Bidders for the scheme include:

• Chiyoda Corporation (Japan)
• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• Dodsal (India)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• JGC Corporation (Japan)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Technip (France)
• Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)