Oman Oil Refineries & Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) has floated a tender on facilities for the handling and storage of petroleum coke (pet coke) produced from the ongoing expansion of its refinery in Sohar.

The state-owned refinery group asked interested companies to submit engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) bids by 4 May.

The scope of the facilities includes five components:

• Receipt of pet coke using tipper truck from delayed coker unit
• Belt Conveyor for loading pet coke in silos
• Storage of pet coke in two silos with total 60,000-tonne capacity
• Loading of pet coke in container from silos
• Unloading of pet coke from container ship at the port

The system will have the capacity to load 40,000 tonnes onto ships in 48 hours.

Pet coke is a by-product of the refining process and can be used as fuel or refined for use in the steel and aluminium production sectors.

EPC companies have until 12 April to prequalify to bid for the tender. One interested contractor estimated the value of the project to be around $90m.

Orpic awarded a $2.1bn EPC contract for the expansion of the Sohar refinery in late 2013. The work is being carried out by a joint venture of South-Korea-based Daelim and the UK’s Petrofac. The capacity will be increased to 187,000 barrel a day (b/d) from 116,000 b/d with commissioning expected in 2016 or 2017.  

Oman is also planning to build a greenfield refinery at Duqm on the country’s central Al-Wusta coastline. Oman-Abu Dhabi joint venture Duqm Refinery & Petrochemical Industries Company (DRPIC) has been prequalifying EPC contractors and is expected to tender the two main packages for the project later this year.

The refinery will be connected to Oman’s central oil fields via a new pipeline and close to the proposed Ras Markaz crude storage facility.