State-owned Abu Dhabi Polymers Company (Borouge) has pushed back the deadline for technical submissions for its planned $200m specialist plastics plant in the UAE by six weeks.

Bids for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract were originally due on 30 September, but will now be submitted on 14 November, according to sources close to the project.

No extension has yet been announced for commercial deadlines, which are set for 25 November.

Six firms have been prequalified for the deal, including the US’ Flour and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction. The UK’s Petrofac and Germany’s Linde are also thought to be preparing bids.

Borouge previously delayed bids submissions in September due to concerns over the low number of bidders and the addition of new firms to the list of prequalified contractors. South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction and Italy’s Tecnimont were also originally prequalified for the project, but both companies declined to bid (MEED 3:9:10).

The deal for the construction of a cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) is part of Borouge’s third-phase of expansion at its Ruwais petrochemicals complex in Abu Dhabi, which will make it one of the largest basic plastics facilities in the world.

This will raise total output at the Ruwais complex to 4.5 million tonnes a year (t/y) of plastics, from around 2 million t/y currently.