Contractors are pushing for more time to submit bids for two Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) projects, according to industry sources.

One is a desalter train, which is estimated to be worth $250m. The second is a gas sweetening facility, which is estimated to be worth $300m. More than one company has already asked KOC for an extension to the existing bid deadline. As things stand the bid deadline for both projects is 1 April.

“Both of the projects are medium sized,” said one source. “There are a lot of companies that have the capacity to execute these projects and there has been a lot of interest in bidding for the contracts.”

Six international contractors attended the pre-tender meeting held on 14 January to discuss the planned $250m desalter train in Kuwait.

The companies that were represented at the meeting were:

• SK E&C (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Petrofac (UK)
• L&T (India)
• SNC-Lavalin (Canada)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)

KOC is planning to install the desalter train in four separate portions at the gathering centres known as GC-09, GC-10, GC-19 and GC-21.

Desalter units remove salt that is dissolved in the water mixed with the crude oil. Salts that are often present in crude oil include calcium, sodium and magnesium chlorides. If these compounds are not removed from the oil it can cause problems during the refining process, including the formation of corrosive hydrochloric acid and deposits that can block heat exchangers.

A pre-tender meeting for the gas sweetening facility project took place on 22 January. Representatives from ten companies attended the meeting. A total of 29 companies are pre-qualified to bid for the contract. The contract consists of two portions: the gas facility itself and a sulphur recovery unit (SRU).

Although the two portions are being tendered under a single contract the two portions use different project financing models. The gas sweetening facility is being built using the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model, while the SRU is being built using the Build Own Operate (BOO) model.

According to the scope the facility will be built to deliver 120 million standard cubic feet a-day (MMSCFD) of sweet gas using from various sour gas streams from upstream processing units with a varied hydrogen sulphide concentration of 4 per cent (mole) and carbon dioxide of 10 per cent (mole).

The facility will be installed at Booster Station BS-171 West Kuwait and will built as an amine solvent based gas treating unit. Amine gas treating, also known as amine scrubbing, refers to a group of processes that use aqueous solutions of various alkylamines (commonly referred to simply as amines) to remove the acid gases and other toxic contaminants from raw sour gas streams.

The project will consist of two identical gas processing trains, each with a capacity of 60 million stand cubic feet a-day (SCFD). The facility will be fed by raw sour gas that is contaminated with heavy hydrocarbons, suspended solids (in the form of black powder), salt water, compressor lube oils and pipe line treating chemicals.

This will be cooled to a lower temperature to remove hydrocarbon liquids and then passes through a suitable pre-treatment system. The gas sweetening facility will be designed targeting zero flaring.

KOC has stipulated that the winner of the contract will be required to develop a gas dispersion flaring model based on simulation results, capacity and tum-down, using a quantitative reliability assessment. The SRU will consist of two separate trains.

According to the scope released by KOC, the contractor will be required to provide tie-in facilities at the relevant locations in the facility to facilitate tie-in of the two SRUs trains. The selected contractor will also be responsible for the procurement, supply, installation, construction, testing, pre-commissioning, commissioning and performance testing of the SRU and associated piping. Each train will have the capacity to handle 100 metric tons per day (TPD) of molten sulphur.