Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) has released a tender for a financial adviser to raise money for its $3.6bn petrochemicals complex in Sohar.

Interested bidders have been asked to submit proposals by 6 May with bid documents made available to companies from 27 March.

Orpic is looking for companies that have recently acted as the financial advisor on projects involving petrochemicals plants and valued at over $1.5bn.

In March, Orpic awarded the front-end engineering and design (feed) contract for the Liwa Plastics petrochemicals project to US-based CB&I and the project management consultancy (PMC) contract to Engineers India.

The feed phase will lead to the tender of the project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC). Orpic expects a decision on prequalifying companies to be made by the end of 2014.

Liwa Plastics is expected to be completed by 2018, doubling Orpic’s profitability by extracting higher-value products from its oil products and gas supplies.

Meanwhile, Orpic has also received bids from companies vying to finance the expansion of its Sohar refinery. The financing package includes about $1bn of debt to be used to refinance existing obligations.

In June 2012, Orpic appointed the UK’s HSBC and National Bank of Oman as financial advisers for the financing of the refinery expansion.