Oman Oil Refineries & Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) aims to complete the financing for its estimated $3.6bn Liwa Plasticspetrochemicals complex project by the end of the year, according to the group’s CEO.

The state-owned company plans to build the largest petrochemicals project in the history of Oman at the northern industrial hub of Sohar.

“This year we plan to raise between $3.3bn and $3.7bn by October for the Liwa Plastics complex. This is the largest project finance we have ever done in Oman,” said Orpic CEO Musab al-Mahruqi, speaking at a press conference in Muscat on 13 April.

“We have already started the process of engaging institutions, including export credit agencies of many nations including South Korea, Japan the UK, France, Germany, and we will start meeting with banks in May-June this year,” he added. “The target is to complete financial closure by year-end.”

Orpic has finished prequalifying companies for the four engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages for the project.

A final list of 19 EPC bidders has been concluded after a two-round prequalification process.

Al-Mahruqi said the EPC contracts are expected to be awarded by October 2015 and the project is due for completion in 2018.

Orpic, Oman’s only major refining company, refined 59 million barrels of oil in 2014 compared with 55 million barrels the previous year. The group processed 20 per cent of Oman’s total oil production.

Orpic’s largest project under execution is the expansion of the Sohar refinery, which began the construction phase at the end of 2013.  

The scheme has reached 56.7 per cent physical progress compared with 53.9 per cent scheduled, Al-Mahruqi said.