Samsung’s bid of $314m is about 11 per cent lower than the next best offer of $349m submitted by Spain’s TR. JGC Corporation of Japan is the only other bidder, with a price of $359m.

The client, a joint venture of Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) and Finland's Neste Oil, is expected to take up to three months evaluating the bid proposals before making an award (MEED 10:4:08).

The engineering, procurement and construction contract calls for the routing of about 12,000 barrels a day of unconverted oil from the existing hydrocracker at the Bapco refinery to the unit which will convert the feedstock to 400,000 tonnes a year of sulphur-free lube base oil, predominantly for export (MEED 13:1:06).

The US’ Jacobs Engineering is the front-end engineering and design contractor for the scheme.

Winning the contract would cap a successful 18 months for Samsung, which has won more than $2bn worth of deals in the region, including two major plant contracts for Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Company in Jubail, the world’s largest single-train ammonia plant for Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden), and the world’s largest olefins conversion unit for Abu Dhabi Polymers Company (Borouge).