Contractors are preparing to bid for a 300-kilometre pipeline extension from Multan to the north for the local Pak-Arab Refinery (Parco). The contract will involve engineering, procurement and construction of the pipeline and associated facilities at an estimated cost of $200 million- 250 million. The bid closing date is 21 August.

Italy's Snamprogetti, Tekfen of Turkey, the UK's ABB Global Engineering with Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC), Techint Compania Tecnica Internacional of Argentina, the US' William Brothers, and a Chinese company are understood to have purchased the tender documents.

The pipeline will have a capacity of 5 million tonnes a year, roughly equivalent to 100,000 barrels a day. It will carry finished petroleum products to Parco's customers in Faisalabad and Lahore, now supplied by road from Multan. The project will also involve building storage depots and pumping stations.

The scheme is part of a plan by Parco to build a refinery at Multan. The pipeline extension would be used to pump the refinery's production north. The existing Karachi to Multan line, which now carries petroleum products, would carry crude to the refinery (MEED 29:1:93).