Oman has completed shortlisting bidders for a tender to build the $300-400m Ras Markaz crude storage terminal near Duqm on the sultanate’s Al-Wusta province coastline, according to sources familiar with the project.

State-owned Oman Tank Terminal Company (OTTCO) is planning to establish a new crude storage facility to be built over 16 square kilometres, including marine facilities for loading and unloading oil.

Companies prequalified to bid on the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender include

• China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation (China)
• Daewoo E&C (South Korea)
• Enppi / Petrojet (Both Egypt)
• IOT Infrastructure & Energy Services (India)
• Larsen & Toubro (India)
• Punj Lloyd (India)
• Rotary Engineering (UAE)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung C&T (South Korea)
• Van Oord (Netherlands)

OTTCO is expected to tender the project by the end of 2016. Prequalification was delayed from the second half of last year, with the request sent to companies in June 2015.

The first phase of the scheme will reportedly have a crude storage capacity of between 6-10 million barrels, which could be expanded in the future to store larger quantities of up to 200 million barrels.

The terminal, to be located 70 kilometres south of the Port of Duqm, will be connected via a new 440km-pipeline to a crude pipeline from Oman’s main onshore oil fields.

Oman Oil Minister Mohammad al-Rumhy said earlier this year that the project will cost between $300m and $400m.

The front-end engineering and design (feed) study for the project was carried out by UK-based Amec Foster Wheeler.

OTTCO is a joint venture of state-owned Oman Oil Company (OOC) and Takamul Investment Company.