Six EPC contractors priced the 10,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) isomerisation unit contract. In addition to the new plant, to be licensed by the US' UOP, the successful bidder will install new condensate export and storage facilities and associated offsites and utilities, and revamp the refinery's existing naphtha hydrotreater, cracker and gas tail units. The project's front-end engineering and design (FEED) package was prepared by the US' Granherne & Company.

The terminal package on the Mina al-Fahal-Sohar crude pipeline scheme attracted five bids, with Gulf Petrochemical being followed by another local contractor, Galfar Engineering & Contracting, with a price of RO 16.3 million ($41.8 million). Several contracts have already been awarded on the project, which will supply feedstock to the proposed 116,000-b/d refinery being built at Sohar. A joint venture of Italy's Saipemand CCC is building the 24-inch-diameter, 260-kilometre-long pipeline, while the local Arabian Industrieshas been awarded the pressure reduction terminal package (MEED 4:6:04).