The client on the project is a joint venture of South Korea’s Honam Petrochemical Corporation and Qatar Intermediate Holdings Company, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum.

Following the submissions, the client will issue tender documents for the four packages on offer, which cover the engineering, procurement and construction of an aromatics facility, polyolefins units an ethyl benzene styrene monomer plant and a world-scale olefins conversion unit (MEED 10:4:08).

The aromatics plant will produce benzene, which, in turn, will be converted to 600,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of styrene monomer, and 200,000 t/y of polystyrene. Propylene from the cracker will feed two polypropylene units, with total capacity of 700,000 t/y.

Awards on each of the packages should be made by early next year.

The centrepiece of the complex is a 900,000-t/y ethane/naphtha cracker. The original bid deadline of 7 May has been extended to the end of June.

Three firms are bidding for the contract to license and build it: Germany’s Linde with South Korea’s Samsung Engineering Company, KBR of the US with GS Engineering & Construction of South Korea, and CBI Lummus Global of the US, Japan's Toyo Engineering Corporation and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company.