The Bahrain Petroleum Company’s (Bapco) $4.2bn contract for its Bapco Modernisation Programme is still yet to be signed, according to industry sources.

A consortium of France’s Technip, Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering said that they had received a letter notifying them of the contract award on 4 December last year.

It was expected that the contract would be signed before the end of 2017.

Bapco, Technip, Technicas Reunidas and Samsung Engineering have all declined to comment on why the contract has not been signed.

The project is located on Bahrain’s east coast and entails the expansion of the capacity of the existing Sitra oil refinery from 267,000 up to 360,000 barrels per day (b/d) and improving energy efficiency.

The project will be executed on engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) lump sum turnkey basis and is slated for completion in 2022.

It includes the following main units:

• Residue Hydrocracking Unit
• Hydrocracker Unit
• Hydro Desulfurisation Unit
• Crude Distillation Unit
• Vacuum Distillation Unit
• Saturated Gas Plant
• Hydrogen Production Unit
• Hydrogen Recovery Unit
• Sulphur Recovery Unit
• Tail Gas Treatment Unit
• Sour Water Stripper Unit
• Amine Recovery Unit
• Bulk Acid Gas Removal Unit
• Sulphur Solidification Unit and Sulphur Handling Facilities
• Utilities and offsites

Technip FMC completed the front end engineering design (feed) work for the project and is the leader of the joint venture.

The other consortiums that submitted bids for the contract were:

• JGC (Japan) / GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Fluor (US) / Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• CB&I (US) / Petrofac (UK) / Mitsui and Company

Bids were submitted in December.