Qatar Petroleum (QP) has again delayed the commercial bid deadline for a $1bn project to upgrade gas facilities at Dukhan and Mesaieed.

The state-run energy firm has notified the five prequalified contracting groups that the new bid deadline is 22 November. The previous deadline was 8 November.

QP had originally asked for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) bids on 18 October (MEED 28:10:09).

A Doha-based contractor says QP required more time to complete the front-end engineering and design (Feed) phase of the project.

“As was the case with the previous delay, QP needs more time to finalise the Feed before it can proceed with bids,” says the contractor.

Contractors submitted technical bids to build the facilities in January (MEED 3:4:09).

The groups competing for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) award are France’s Technip; the UK’s Petrofac; Italy’s Saipem; Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company with the US’ Black & Veatch; and India’s Larsen & Toubro with Argentina’s Tecna.

The winning group will build facilities at Mesaieed including a new acid gas removal unit and an amine-sweetening plant.

The plant will have capacity to process about 750 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas, which will primarily be used as feedstock for petrochemicals projects.

The second part of the package is for an acid gas removal unit at the onshore Dukhan field.

The unit will have capacity to process about 450 million cf/d of gas from the Khuff reservoir.