Invited companies include UB Engineering and Larsen & Toubro, both of India, and South Korea's Human & Technology Company. A pre-tender meeting will be held on 22 February. Construction will take about two years.

The scope of works for the estimated $50 million construction contract covers the plant's civil, mechanical, electrical and piping elements, including its superstructure. The client is responsible for procurement. FFE Minerals India, a subsidiary of Denmark's FL Smidth, is carrying out the engineering portion and will also supply and install the calcining equipment, incinerators and technology in addition to providing project supervision for the civil and electro-mechanical work (MEED 21:10:05).

PCIC, in which Al-Mal Kuwaiti and AH Sagar & Brothers, both local, are the main shareholders, won the estimated $130 million, 20-year build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) concession agreement to develop the 350,000-tonne-a-year plant in 2004. Green coke feedstock for the plant will be supplied by state refinery operator Kuwait National Petroleum Company, while the project will be financed through a combination of debt and equity, with the debt being covered by a KD 20 million ($70 million) commercial loan extended by Industrial Bank of Kuwait. The local Global Investment House is financial adviser (MEED 12:11:04).