State-owned upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has decided to retender its $800m project to build a crude oil feed pipeline for the Al-Zour New Refinery Project (NRP).

KOC has sent a fax to contractors informing them of the decision to retender the project and requesting feedback on whether they are interested in bidding on the scheme.

The deadline for feedback from companies was 15 June and a new bid deadlines is expected to be announced after Ramadan.

The communication from KOC comes after MEED reported on 14 May that insiders expected the project to be retendered.

The feed pipeline will be the second package connected to the NRP to be retendered in a matter of months.

On 10 May Kuwait formally announced the retender of the tankage package for the NRP, known as package four.

There is ongoing speculation that other packages connected to the project could also be retendered after low bids for the scheme’s unawarded packages came in $3.7bn over budget.

The Al-Zour scheme will see a 615,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) refinery constructed on a greenfield site in the Divided Zone, which is shared with Saudi Arabia, and has a long history of delays and setbacks.

Since it was first announced in 2005, the scheme has been tendered twice. It saw contracts awarded on the second occasion, but they were cancelled before construction started by the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC), a government agency that is charged with oversight of the country’s energy sector.

In October 2013, India’s Larsen & Toubro allowed its bid bond for the Al-Zour feed pipeline project to expire, effectively withdrawing its low bid, worth $814m, to carry out engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work for a new pipeline.

In the wake of Larsen & Toubro’s withdrawal from the bidding process Dubai-based Dodsal became low bidder, with a price worth $106m more than the price submitted by Larsen & Toubro.

The original bidders list was:

• Larsen & Toubro (India) $814m
• Dodsal (Dubai) $922m
• Eni Saipem (Italy) $946m
• Daelim Industrial (South Korea) $959m
• Petrofac (UK) $1bn

The contract’s scope includes the construction of about 250 kilometres of oil feedstock pipelines that will serve the planned 615,00 b/d greenfield Al-Zour New Refinery in southern Kuwait.