Kuwait is moving ahead with plans to increase its crude oil distribution network with the emergence of frontrunners for two deals.

Local Combined Group Contracting Company is the frontrunner for the contract to build a series of crude oil pipelines in the south and east of the country.

The firm’s price of $93m (KD27m) beat proposals from seven other firms when bids were submitted on 30 May. The second-placed bid from Heavy Engineering Industries & Shipbuilding Company was $97m.

Tendered in early March, bids for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) deal were originally due to be submitted on 16 May, but the client, state-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), pushed back the deadline to 20 May. KOC also tendered a similar pipeline deal in the north of Kuwait. The low-bidder for the contract is the local Mechanical Engineering & Contracting Company, with a price of $133m. A number of contractors say there are mixed signals coming from KOC over its plans to increase heavy oil production in the north of the country. But following the award of a $155m pipeline contract on 7 June to Switzerland’s ABB Engineering Technologies Company, there are signs that Kuwait is pushing ahead with its heavy oil plans.

Kuwait has an estimated 13 billion barrels of heavy crude oil reserves, located in the north of the country. KOC plans to increase total production capacity to 4 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2020 from the current 3 million b/d.

For Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi refinery, Italy’s Saipem and South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction are not bidding in a consortium as reported by MEED on 4 June (4:6:10).