State-owned Oil Pipelines Company (OPC) has extended the deadline by two weeks for a deal to build a new liquid petroleum gas (LPG) pipeline in the south of Iraq.

OPC, a subsidiary of the Oil Ministry, has set a new deadline of 28 January for technical proposals. A deadline for commercial offers will be announced later.

The 16-inch pipeline will run from the Khor al-Zubair LPG storage complex in the southern Basra governorate to the Nassiriyah pumping station located in the Dhi-Qar governorate, with a total length of approximately 200 kilometres. It will replace an existing 14-inch LPG pipeline.

Under its 2010-14 spending plan, the Oil Ministry has will build two new dry gas pipelines totalling 3,000km in length, as well as a trans-Iraq LPG pipeline, costing about $5bn.

The plan also covers 11 smaller projects that will cost an estimated total of $1.25bn, according to MEED Insight. Three years into the Oil Ministry’s plan, of the proposed schemes, only two have been tendered so far.