Saudi Aramco has extended the bid deadline for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages for the planned $7bn Jizan Refinery Project in the south of Saudi Arabia.

The new bid deadline for contractors is 15 September. The decision was taken after contractors requested more time to formulate bids.

“The bids have been extended to September, but that is pretty usual for a job of this size, especially as there are so many contractors bidding on multiple contracts,” says an oil and gas source based in Saudi Arabia. “Another month should be enough time.”

MEED reported in May that several international contractors have been prequalified to bid on all the packages available at Jizan.

The four contractors prequalified for all the packages at Jizan include:

• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• SK Engineering (South Korea) 

Other contractors prequalified for the Jizan project include:

• CB&I (US)
• Chiyoda (Japan)
• CTCI (Taiwan)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• JGC Corporation (Japan)
• Petrofac(UK)
• Petrol Steel (local/Singapore)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)

Sources in the kingdom also say that two of the original packages have now been cancelled and will probably be merged into the proposed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant package. Those two packages cover sulphur recovery and treatment facilities as well as the flue-gas desulfurisation.

The remaining packages being tendered include:

• Crude distillation unit and vacuum distillation unit
• Hydrocracker
• Marine terminal facilities
• Naphtha and aromatics, which Includes:
  Naphtha hydrotreater
  Reformer/catalyst regeneration reformers
  Isomerisation
  Paraxylene complex
  Benzene extraction unit
• Sulphur recovery unit/amine treating unit
• Two tank farms
• Utilities

MEED reported in March that packages on the Jizan scheme will be offered on a national and international basis, meaning that some of the work can be carried out overseas by companies not fully registered to work in Saudi Arabia.

The refinery will have a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day (b/d) when completed in 2017 and will be wholly owned by Aramco. Due to the distance between the oil fields and Jizan, crude and the subsequent refined products will not be transferred by pipeline, but will enter and leave exclusively through the marine terminal.