State-refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) could tender a planned $900m fifth gas train at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery in early 2012 after awarding a project management consultancy (PMC) contract to the UK’s Amec.

KNPC selected the UK-based engineering consultants in April. It will also prepare front-end engineering and design (feed) work for the proposed gas train, which will separate associated gas produced in the north and southeast of the country into its basic components, according to sources close to the project.

“The [feed] work will take six to seven months to complete before the train can be tendered,” says the source.

In the meantime, KNPC will determine whether it can use the same technology, materials designs used in the fourth gas train, currently being built by South Korea’s Daelim. The new train is expected to be of the same scale, processing more than 800 million cubic feet of gas a day (cf/d) and 100,000 barrels a day (b/d) of condensates.

“Only the offsites and utilities aspect would be different, so there would be lots of benefits to building it at the same time if they decide to do this,” says a Kuwait-city based contractor.

KNPC awarded South Korea’s Daelim a $886m contract in June last year for the retendered deal to build a fourth gas fractionating column at the refinery approximately 45 kilometres south of Kuwait City. The unit is expected to be completed by the end of 2013 (MEED 15:6:10).