Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has tendered the preparation works for its Clean Fuels Project (CFP) at two refineries in Kuwait.

The state-owned refiner has asked prequalified international companies with their local partners to submit bids by 10 July 2012 for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.

The international contractors prequalified to bid are:

• SK Engineering and Construction (South Korea)
• JGC Corporation (Japan)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Techint (Italy)
• Larsen & Toubro (India)
• ABB (Switzerland)
• Sinopec Engineering (China)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Punj Lloyd (India)
• Technip (France)  

Interested companies have been asked to submit an initial guarantee of KD1.44m ($5.17m) for the contract, which is estimated to be worth about $200m. KNPC will hold a pre-tender meeting on 6 June at its main offices.

The scope of the project includes preparation works for CFP, which will upgrade and expand the Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah refineries.

The estimated $18bn megaproject, which will be tendered in three packages, will increase the processing capacity of the Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdulla refineries to 800,000 barrels a day (b/d) from 736,000 b/d by 2017, following the retirement of processing facilities at the Shuaiba refinery.

KNPC has asked international contractors to submit prequalification documents for the main CFP contract by 13 June 2012. Many of the prequalified companies listed above are likely to participate in the bidding process for the CFP main contract.

The company has asked companies to submit bids for the project management consultancy (PMC) contract by 23 May.