Unofficial bid opening results, following submissions on 3 June, reveal Petrofac’s price is 4 per cent lower than the next best bid of KD153m submitted by South Korea’s Daelim Industrial Company. Spain’s TR is third on price at KD154m. The other two bid-ders are SK Engineering & Construction, also of South Korea, and Italy’s Snamprogetti/Saipem, with offers of KD163m and KD164m respectively.

The lump-sum engineering, procurement and construction contract covers the installation of a 40-inch-diameter gas pipeline between gas booster station 131, in the far north, and the state’s fourth gas fractionation plant at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery, which is under construction.

The pipeline will be at least 150 kilometres long. It will transport gas from Kuwait’s northern fields, where production recently started. The gas is processed at Mina al-Ahmadi before being sent on to the state’s power generation plants.

Petrofac has lost out on the two most recent contracts it has competed for in the state. It narrowly missed out to Snamprogetti on two upstream contracts in Kuwait: the first for booster station 160; the second for the second-phase effluent reinjection facilities programme (MEED 29:5:08).

The UAE contractor is close to completing its last major contract in Kuwait: the KD199m deal awarded in 2005 to upgrade facilities and flowlines for KOC (MEED 29:4:08).