Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has approved South Korea’s Daelim for a $519.6m contract to build new sulphur-handling and ship-loading facilities at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery.

Daelim submitted the lowest price for the sulphur-handling scheme, beating rival proposals from three other firms in a 4 March bid round.

The CTC monitors Kuwait’s major public tenders.

Sources close to the project have previously said they expected a letter of award to be issued at the end of May or early June.

The project covers the revamp of existing sulphur granulators, conveyors stackers and reclaimers, as well as ship and truck loaders.

It also includes the installation of new granulators (5,000 tonnes a day (t/d)), liquid storage tanks (14,880 tonnes), feed pumps, rectangular storage (145,000 tonnes), stacker/reclaimer, conveyor (1,500 tonnes an hour (t/h)), ship loader, and an offshore loading terminal (60,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt)).