Abu Dhabi Polymers Company (Borouge) has set a bid timeline for its new $200m specialist plastics plant at Ruwais.

MEED reported in June that the petrochemicals firm had invited contractors to bid on the engineering, procurement and construction contract (EPC), to build a cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) plant, which is part of the third-phase expansion of Borouge’s Ruwais complex.

The company has been arranging visits to the Borouge 3 site for prospective bidders and most recently hosted contractors on 2 August. It has set a 30 August deadline for technical proposals and has told contractors that it plans to ask for commercial bids in late October, with an award set for the end of the year.

Contractors prequalified to bid on the deal include:

• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Linde (Germany)
• Petrofac (UK)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Tecnimont (Italy)

The Borouge 3 capacity expansion, which will bring the total output at the company’s Ruwais production complex to 4.5 million tonnes a year of plastics, making it one of the largest basic plastics facilities in the world.

In May, MEED reported that a consortium of South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Italy’s Tecnimont were the favourites to win the EPC contracts to build a $1.45bn polyolefins unit and a $500m low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plant while South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction was the frontrunner for the $937m offsites and utilities deal.

Borouge sent out formal letters of award to the three contractors on 26 May and site preparation work has already started. The company already has sales agreements in place for the added capacity, the majority in Asia.