State-refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has taken a step closer to tendering its planned $14.1bn New Refinery Project, selecting several international engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) groups to bid on two of its packages.

However, these do not include a list of prequalified firms for the new refinery’s main process plants, or the offsites and utilities package, despite receiving applications almost a year ago.

Four groups were prequalified for package four, which covers the construction of a storage tank farm with a budget of $1.1bn. These are:

• Daelim (South Korea)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Petrofac (UK) with Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy) with Essar (India)

Five groups were prequalified for package five, which covers new marine facilities, including subsea pipelines and an export island, worth $850m:

• Daelim
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction with Saipem and SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• McDermott (US)
• Petrofac with Hyundai Heavy Industries

Contractors in Kuwait say they do not expect a tender for the refinery’s main process package to be released for another six months.

KNPC has previously said it would wait for the results of bids on the $16.25bn Clean Fuels Project (CFP), another major planned downstream project, before issuing tenders for the new refinery. Bids for the three CFP packages were submitted on 24 December by five consortiums. 

KNPC’s parent company, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) is still conducting a feasibility study for the integration of a new petrochemicals complex with the New Refinery. US engineering firms Fluor and Foster Wheeler are conducting feasibility studies for two new petrochemicals plants for Petrochemicals Industries Company (PIC), another KPC subsidiary.

KPC has also been considering changes to the planned NRP tenders, potentially combining packages 1 and 2 to reduce the contractors’ interface and performance risks, as well as providing economies of scope and scale. A final decision on this will depend on the results of the petrochemicals study and the successful award of the CFP.

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