Technical offers are due to be submitted in late January for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a new ethylene glycol (EG) facility for Sharq at its Jubail complex, with commercial offers due by the end of February. The plant will have capacity to produce 600,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of EG and will use technology developed by US-based Scientific Design Company, a 50:50 joint venture between Sabic and Germany's Sued Chemie.

The same bid deadlines have been set for companies planning to bid for the contract to build high-density PE (HDPE) and linear low-density PE (LLDPE) units with a combined capacity of 800,000 t/y and using the Unipol PE process from the US' Univation Technologies. Five companies - Mitsubishi Heavy Industriesand Toyo Engineering Corporation, both of Japan, Italy's Snamprogetti, Germany's Lindeand Kvaerner E&C, part of the Oslo-based AkerKvaerner Group- have been invited to bid for the contract.

A bid meeting will be held in London in mid-January for contractors interested in bidding for the EG and PE projects. Sharq is also preparing to receive commercial offers for its planned 1.4 million-t/y mixed ethane/ propane cracker project on 21 February. Four members of the ethylene club - Shaw Groupand Kellogg Brown & Root, both US-based, Germany's Lindeand Paris-based Technip- are expected to bid for the contract.

US-based Foster Wheelerhas the contract to carry out project management consultancy (PMC) and front-end engineering and design (FEED) services for all units except the cracker, which will be handled by the winner of the EPC and technology contract.

Bid documents are due to be released in early January by Sabic for its planned 700,000-t/y EG and 800,000-t/y PE units at Yanbu. Sabic has opted for Scientific Design technology for the EG facility and chosen the Unipol PE process for the LLDPE unit. It is understood that Europe's Basell and Japan's Mitsui Chemicals are being considered to supply HDPE technology.

Technology suppliers and EPC contractors planning to bid for Sabic's 1.3 million-t/y cracker at Yanbu have been given an additional four weeks until 31 January to submit commercial proposals. Technical offers were submitted by all five members of the ethylene club in late November. Foster Wheeler has the PMC contract (MEED 15:10:04).