International engineering, procurement and construction companies will submit their first round of bids in November for new gasoline production facility in Ruwais, a senior official from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) said.

“Bids are due in a couple of months, and we will make a final investment decision by the end of the year of in Q1 2019,” Abdul Aziz al-Hajri, Adnoc’s downstream director told MEED in an exclusive interview.

Adnoc plans to raise its gasoline production capacity to 9.4 million tonnes a year (t/y) by 2022 with the new gasoline and aromatics project adding 4.2 million t/y, as well as 1.6 million t/y of aromatics. It will be built on a site adjacent to the existing 840,000 barrels a day (b/d) Ruwais refinery, which underwent a major expansion in 2015, doubling its crude handling capacity.

The new facility’s front-end engineering and design (feed) is being carried out by UK-based Amec, while France’s Axens was chosen for the process licenses. US-based Jacobs Engineering was appointed the project management consultant for the feed phase in June last year.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work is expected to take four years to complete. Once commissioned the new facility will “enable us to meet the needs of expanding market for refined products, as well as maximising the value to each barrel processed,” said Al-Hajri.

The project is part of a wider expansion of Ruwais, as Abu Dhabi attempts to build out its downstream sector, banking of the growth of petrochemicals as the driver of oil demand. Unveiled in May, the downstream expansion includes the construction of a new 600,000 b/d refinery and one of the world’s largest mixed-feed crackers, which will boost production capacity to 14.4 million t/y by 2025, from 4.5 million t/y currently.

A new conversion park to turn basic products from Ruwais into intermediate products is also being developed, with shared utilities to be used by private investors.