Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company (Takreer) has extended the deadline for commercial proposals again by two weeks to 23 January for a deal to build new oil storage facilities in Sharjah.

The latest in a long list of delays comes after Takreer pushed back technical clarification meetings with bidders, the last of which ended on 6 January.

The retendered scheme had attracted wide interest from international engineering and construction firms, but of the 17 prequalified by Takreer, only seven submitted technical bids for the estimated $150m deal on 6 December (MEED 15:10:10).

These were:

• Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (US)
• China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (China)
• Descon Engineering (Pakistan)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Indian Oil Tanking (India)
• Litwin (France)
• Al-Jaber Energy Services (UAE)

The firms are competing to build nine storage tanks with a capacity of 83,000 cubic metres for refined oil and gas products such as jet fuel, diesel, gasoline and fuel oil on the Sharjah coast. The scheme was originally being developed by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (Adnoc) subsidiary Adnoc Distribution, but was taken over by Takreer, another Adnoc subsidiary, early in the second quarter of 2010.

Five firms originally bid for the deal in September 2009 including, Al-Jaber Energy Services, Italy’s Belleli Energy, Lebanon’s Contracting & Trading, Punj Lloyd and Indian Oil Tanking, but the tender was cancelled in January 2010 as Adnoc commissioned more detailed engineering works on the scheme.