The joint venture partners behind the $6.4bn Ras Laffan olefins project have started to prequalify contractors interested in bidding for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages for the planned petrochemicals complex in northern Qatar.

State-owned Qatar Petroleum (QP) and the UK-Dutch Shell sent out prequalification packs to contractors on 13 April and plan to issue tenders for the various packages for the scheme from August.

“This is a project that has been delayed for various reasons over the last few years, but now it is starting to move,” says a regional contracting source. “There are some diverse packages in the scope, so I am imagining a similarly diverse set of bidders will emerge.”

The project is split into seven separate packages:

• Linear Alpha Olefins (LAO) unit
• Monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit
• Offsites and utilities
• Oxo-alcohols unit
• Project management services
• Steam cracker

The main package will be the mixed-feed steam cracker unit with the feedstock being ethane and propane. The cracker will have a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes-a-year (t/y) of ethylene and 170,000 t/y of propylene. The joint venture partners have automatically prequalified the five technology providers known colloquially as the ‘ethylene club’ to bid on the package.

Those bidders are:

• CB&I Lummus (US)
• KBR (US)
• Linde (Germany)
• Shaw (US)
• Technip (US)

The MEG unit will have a capacity of 1.5 million t/y and will use Shell technology. The scope of works involves the construction of two trains each with a capacity of 750,000 t/y.

The LAO and oxo-alcohols units will have capacities of 300,000 t/y and 250,000 t/y respectively.

The joint venture partners plan to release the tenders in two tranches. The steam cracker, offsites and utilities and project management services packages will be released in the second quarter of 2012 while the remainder will be sent out in the fourth quarter.

Awards will be made for offsites and utilities and the project management services in the fourth quarter of 2012 with the remainder of the packages being awarded in the second quarter of 2013.

MEED reported in March that the UK’s RBS had been appointed as financial adviser for the project.