State-owned upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)has reissued the tender for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract on the proposed Ahmadi oil storage and export facilities project (MEED 3:9:04).

Seventeen international EPC contractors have been invited to bid by 22 February 2005 on the estimated $850 million project. A pre-tender meeting for firms intending to bid will be held on 31 October, with a site visit to follow.

It is unclear how many of the invited companies will bid. Three companies, Oslo-based Aker Kvaerner, Paris-based Technipand Japan's JGC Corporation, priced the turnkey contract on the previous occasion in May 2003. Kvaerner was low bidder at KD 234.7 million ($779 million), some 45 per cent lower than the next offer of KD 339.4 million ($1,127 million) submitted by Technip. However, late last year the tender was cancelled a week before bid bonds were due to expire.

The project, which retains the scope of the original tender issue, calls for the construction of 11.4 million barrels of crude storage capacity at Ahmadi. It will be tendered in four packages covering general works, tanks and gravity lines, pumps and metering skids and offshore works.

The US' Parsons Engineering Corporationhas carried out the front-end engineering and design (FEED) package (MEED 19:12:03).