Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has pushed back the deadline by two months for bids on its planned $4.2bn Lower Fars heavy oil development.

Bids are now due to be submitted to state upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) on 11 May instead of 30 March. Bids were originally due at the end of January.

KOC has prequalified 19 firms to bid for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) deal which covers steam injection facilities, production facilities, a support complex, tank farms and a 270,000 barrel a day (b/d) pipeline.

The deal is for phase one of the heavy oil development in the north of Kuwait, which will take production to 60,000 b/d by 2017. Subsequent phases will ramp up production to 120,000 b/d by 2020 and ultimately 270,000 b/d by 2030.