With the new tender, the client has combined the inside and outside battery limits into one package instead of the original two. It will also award the work on a lump-sum, rather than cost-reimbursable basis.

The new engineering, procurement and construction contract covers the construction of a 3,500-tonne-a-day (t/d) urea train and two 2,200-t/d ammonia plants. It also includes a captive 167-MW captive power plant, ship loading facilities, an air separation unit, a desalination plant and an effluent water treatment unit.The two original bidders on the inside battery limits (IBSL) package were Italy's Snamprogetti and Germany's Uhde. Both have been invited to submit bids by August for the revised package.

Under the original contracting strategy, Uhde, the IBSL contractor and the US' Chicago Bridge & Iron (CB&I), which took the offsites and utilities job, were to provide an open-book estimate once engineering was complete, with the aim of movingon to the execution phase (MEED 22:9:06).

However, CB&I's estimate is understood to have come in too high, prompting Qafco to revise its tendering strategy. Its initial plan was to only retender the offsites and utilities package, but in late June it decided to merge the two contracts and start the tendering process afresh.

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