Qatar’s Laffan Refinery Company has released the tender for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract at its $1bn phase two expansion in Ras Laffan.

The expansion will process an additional 146,000 barrels a day (b/d) of condensate recovered from the one of the world’s largest non-associated gas fields, the North Field.

“Bids are out for phase two now and there are a lot of companies bidding,” says an oil and gas source familiar with the project. “It is one of the few oil and gas jobs being tendered [in Qatar] at the moment.”

The bid submission date has been set at mid-November and the contract is being tendered on a lump-sum turnkey basis. Technip is currently carrying out the front-end engineering and design for the scheme.

Companies bidding for the project include:

• Chiyoda Corporation and CTCI (Japan/Taiwan)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• JGC Corporation (Japan)
• Petrofac (UK)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Technip (France)

The second phase of the Ras Laffan project will double the capacity of the current refinery. The product mix is expected to stay the same. The Laffan refinery currently produces 61,000 b/d of naphtha, 52,000 b/d of jet fuel, 24,000 b/d of gasoil and 9,000 b/d of liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

The complex will also add a benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) unit that will process aromatics feedstock to be used in the domestic petrochemicals sector. The offtake is expected to fuel a range of new petrochemicals industries in Qatar. MEED reported in early April that Qatar Petroleum (QP) was tendering the feasibility study for the proposed Ras Laffan aromatics plant that will be built close to the Laffan refinery complex.

QP is the leading shareholder of the Laffan refinery with a holding of 51 per cent. The remaining shares are spread between several international companies with the US’ ExxonMobil, France’s Total, Malaysia’s Idemitsu and Japan’s Cosmo with Japan’s Mitsui and Marubeni each retaining 4.5 per cent stakes.