State-refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) is on the verge of awarding South Korea’s Daelim Industrial the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the construction of new sulphur-handling and ship loading facilities at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery.

Daelim Industrial is the lowest bidder for the scheme. MEED reported in January that the bid submission deadline for the scheme was 4 March.

Three of the four lowest bids for the scheme are from South Korea. The four lowest bidders are:

• Daelim Industrial (South Korea): $519m
• Dodsal (India): $532m
• Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea): $534m
• Hanwha Engineering & Construction (South Korea): $631.3m

The project covers the revamp of existing sulphur granulators, conveyors stackers, re-claimers and the ship and truck loaders.

It also includes the installation of new granulators (5,000 tonnes a day), liquid storage tanks (14,880 tonnes), feed pumps, rectangular storage (145,000 tonnes), stacker/reclaimer, conveyor (1,500 tonnes an hour), ship loader, off-shore loading terminal (60,000 deadweight tonnes).

Front-end engineering design (feed) work on facility was completed by Germany-based ThyssenKrupp in mid-September 2011.

Contractors are still waiting for the release of a related tender for the rehabilitation the sulphur handling facility at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery.