Representatives from the three consortiums expected to bid on phase one of Kuwait’s Jurassic Gas Facility attended a site visit on 18 October – signalling that they are all still intending to submit a price.

The consortiums expected to bid on the project are:

• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Petrofac (UK)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea) / Larsen & Toubro (India)
• Saipem (Italy) / Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)

A representative from Japan’s JGC Corporation attended the tender meeting on 16 October but did not attend the site visit.

“It’s not really possible for JGC to bid on this project anymore,” said one industry source. “Outside of the companies in the existing consortiums there isn’t anyone else that has enough capacity to take on this kind of job.”

The project is being tendered by state owned upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company and it has an estimated budget of $3.6bn.

The deadline for bids is 27 February 2018.

The project, called Jurassic Gas Facility: Phase 1, has a scope that includes a central processing facility (CPF), offsite facilities and a pipeline gathering system.

The CPF will have the capacity to process 590 million standard cubic feet of gas a-day. It will be able to process 220,000 barrels of oil a day (b/d) and 1,200 tons per day of sulfur.

The scheme is being developed to meet Kuwait’s growing gas demand. The government plans to produce more than 4 billion cf/d by 2030, primarily to meet power generation requirements.

Kuwait currently burns a large volume of oil products to meet its utility needs.

In December 2016, KOC awarded the US-based Black & Veatch a licensing technology and related services contract for sulphur recovery and acid gas removal units to support natural gas processing at the first phase of the Jurassic natural gas facility.

The phase one of the project is scheduled to be completed in 2021.