State-upstream operator Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has pushed back the deadline for proposals for three deals for the treatment of contaminated soil at its oil fields in the south east of the country. The deadline has been delayed by two weeks to 7 August.

KOC launched the clean-up deals in March and has prequalified 25 local and international engineering firms. The environmental damage at the oil fields was caused by the 1991 Iraqi invasion. The south eastern fields have been divided into three groups known as A, B and C, with the total scheme worth an estimated $200m.

A larger deal for the clean-up of thousands of oil lakes formed by the Iraqi invasion and subsequent retreat is expected to be tendered by KOC in August (MEED 8:4:11).

Some 2,400 oil lakes were formed over an area of almost 50 square kilometres as retreating Iraqi troops set fire to hundreds of oil wellheads. The oil lakes have formed a mixture of oil, sand and highly concentrated salts as a result of the use of seawater to extinguish the oil-well fires after the war.