Local and international engineering companies submitted bids on 8 July for four deals for an oil storage terminal at the port of Fujairah.

The four contracts cover civil works, tanks, piping and electrical and instrumentation work.

The joint venture partners, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (Socar) and Swiss-owned commodities trader Aurora Progress, invited companies to bid by 1 July (MEED 3:6:10).

Four firms submitted bids for all the deals on offer. These are:

• Topaz Engineering (local)
• Belleli Energy (Italy)
• Indian Oiltanking Limited (India)
• Nico International (local)

In addition to these four firms, local firm Albanna Engineering bid for the piping contract, while Danway Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, also local bid for the electrical and instrumentation deal.

Sources close to the project expect an award to be made in early August. Initial civil works were completed in February. The first phase of the new terminal is expected to be operational by early 2011.

The joint venture will develop oil storage facilities at the port including a $180m 641,000 square-metre oil products storage terminal that will be called Socar Aurora Fujairah Terminal-JV.

The terminal will comprise 20 tanks and will be able to handle 20 million tonnes of refined oil products a year. It will be used for the storage of oil products, the blending and resupply of fuel oil, gasoline and jet kerosene. Although Socar Aurora will operate the terminal, it will offer storage capacity to other companies.