Kuwait’s Central Agency for Public Tenders (CAPT) has announced it will formally invite companies to bid for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build phase one of the Jurassic Gas Facility for the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).

The tenders will be issued in a period of 30 or more days, according to the statement.

Seven companies have been invited to bid for the contract.

The invited bidders are:

• JGC Corporation, (Japan)
• Kellog Brown & Root, (US)
• SK Engineering & Construction, (South Korea)
• Saipem, (Italy)
• Technicas Reunidas, (Spain)
• Samsung Engineering, (South Korea)
• Hyundai Heavy Industries, )South Korea)

CAPT says companies that have taken part in the prequalification process and have not been included on this list have one week to file a complaint with CAPT’s Board of Directors if they would like their application to be reconsidered.

The EPC contract for phase one of the Jurassic Gas Facility is estimated to be worth between $3.5bn and $5bn.

The first phase of the Jurassic natural gas facility will be located in Kuwait’s Al-Ahmadi governorate and has been designed to produce 590 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas.The project is being developed to meet Kuwait’s growing gas demand. The government plans to produce more than 4 billion cf/d by 2030, primarily to meet power generation requirements. The Opec member currently burns a large volume of oil products to meet its utility needs.

In December 2016, KOC awarded the US-based Black & Veatch a licensing technology and related services contract for sulphur recovery and acid gas removal units to support natural gas processing at the first phase of the Jurassic natural gas facility.

The initial phase is scheduled to be completed in 2021.