Eight companies have been prequalified to bid on a tender to build an ammonia plant in Salalah, southern Oman, according to project owner Salalah Methanol Company (SMC).

SMC is planning to build a 1,000 tonne-a-day (t/d) plant in the Salalah Free Zone, with storage facilities, export loading facilities and additional utilities.

The companies prequalified to bid are:

• CTCI Corporation (Taiwan)
• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Hanwha Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Larsen & Toubro(India)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• SNC Lavalin (Canada)
• Tecnicas Reunidas(Spain)

SMC is finalising the tender documents and is planning to invite companies to bid before the end of 2015.

The company will use rich hydrogen purge gas from its adjacent 3,000-t/d methanol plant as feedstock to produce ammonia in the new facility. Ammonia is mainly used to make nitrogen-based fertilisers, cleaning chemicals and for fermentation.

The front-end engineering and design (feed) study for the project was carried out by Germany’s Linde.

SMC is co-owned by state-owned Oman Oil Company (OOC) and Takamul Investment Company. The latter company is 93 per cent owned by OOC.