More than a year after asking for applications, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has finally announced that it has prequalified eight international engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms to bid for the construction of a fifth gas train.

The state-refiner invited EPC firms to prequalify for the long awaited contract in November 2012, with documents due in early January 2013. Eight firms will now wait for tenders to be released for the estimated $1.5bn deal. 

These are:

• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea) with Hyundai Engineering (South Korea)
• Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)

The UK’s Amec was appointed in April 2011 to carry out the scheme’s front-end engineering and design (feed) and its project management consultancy (PMC).

The new train at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery will increase Kuwait’s gas processing capacity by 805 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) and 106,000 barrels a day (b/d) of liquids, catering for associated gas and condensate production from existing facilities in southeast and north Kuwait.