State-refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has added three more firms to its list of prequalified contractors for an estimated $1.2bn deal to design and build new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm at its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery in southern Kuwait.

The three firms included are:

• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Hanwha Engineering & Construction (South Korea) and Oyster Progetti (Italy)
• Samsung C&T Corporation (South Korea)

KNPC invited international and local engineering firms to submit technical and commercial proposals by 28 November.

A pre-tender meeting will be held on 6 October. Firms which submitted prequalification documents on the 14 August deadline include:

• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Hyundai Heavy Industries (South Korea)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Petrofac International (UK)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Sinopec Engineering (China)

Front-end engineering and design (Feed) work for the LPG tank deal was completed this year by the UK’s Amec.

The winning firm will build a new tank farm in the north area of the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery to store LPG from KNPC’s fourth gas fractionating column, which was awarded to Daelim in June. The retendered deal, worth $886m, is expected to be completed by the end of 2013 and will separate associated gas produced in the north and southeast of the country into its basic components. (MEED 15:6:10).

A fifth train is under consideration, but a tender is not expected to be released before the end of 2011.