Technical bids were submitted in late March from at least two international contractors for the Saudi European Petrochemical Company (Ibn Zahr) polypropylene (PP) plant contract at Jubail.

Commercial offers are scheduled to go in at the end of April. An award is expected soon after (MEED 13:1:06). The bidders are understood to include Germany's Linde and South Korea's Samsung Engineering Company.

The scope of works on the estimated $800 million convertible lump-sum contract covers the construction of a 500,000-tonne-a-year PP plant.

The US' Dow Chemical Company has licensed its proprietary Unipol technology for the unit.

Five international contractors are also understood to be preparing to submittechnical and commercial offers by the extended 21 Aprildeadline for the project's offsites and utilities package(MEED 17:3:06).

Oslo-based Aker Kvaerner is the project managementconsultant on the scheme (MEED 31:3:06).