As the traditionally dominant Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE slowed their development plans in response to lower oil prices, Kuwait and Egypt moved ahead with a series of multi-billion dollar projects that dominated the region’s projects market in 2015.

1) Kuwait New Refinery ($13bn)

The biggest set of deals was signed in October when state-owned downstream operator Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) signed engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contracts with a value of $13bn for the Al-Zour New Refinery Project.

The winners of packages one, two, three and five were named on 28 July by Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC).

Package one consists of a process plant and has been awarded to the low-bidder, a joint venture of Technicas Reunidas (Spain), Sinopec Engineering (China), and Hanwha E&C (South Korea).

Package two, which consists of a process plant, and package three, which consists of offsites and utilities, were both won by a joint venture of Fluor (US), Hyundai Heavy Industries(South Korea), and Daewoo Engineering (South Korea).

The EPC contracts for packages one and two are worth a total of KD1,745m.

Package five comprises marine facilities and was awarded to a consortium of Hyundai E&C (South Korea), SK E&C (South Korea) and Saipem (Italy).

The contract for package five is worth KD454m.

The final EPC contract on the project was awarded to a consortium of Italy’s Saipem and India’sEssar in August. The package, known as package four, is worth KD475m ($1.57bn) and includes the construction of tanks, piping and underground works.

The Al-Zour New Refinery Project will be a 615,000 barrel-a-day (b/d) facility near Kuwait’s border with Saudi Arabia.

2) Egypt Additional Power Capacity ($9bn)

In June, Cairo signed contracts worth a total of €8bn ($9bn) with Germany’s Siemens to build 16.4GW of additional power capacity in Egypt.

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel witnessed the signing of the contracts at Germany’s Ministry of Economy in Berlin on 3 June 2015.

The projects will boost Egypt’s installed electricity capacity by 16.4GW.

In partnership with Egyptian companies Elsewedy Electric and Orascom Construction, Siemens will build three gas-fired power plants, each with a capacity of 4.8GW, with a total capacity of 14.4GW. The power plants at Beni Suef, Burullus and New Capital will be powered by Siemens H-Class turbines.

The first 4.4GW will come online before the summer of 2017 and the full 14.4GW will become available 38 months after the financing has closed and advance payments have been received.

Siemens will also deliver up to 12 windfarms in the Gulf of Suez and West Nile areas, which will consist of 600 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 2GW. Under the agreement, Siemens will build a rotor blade factory in Egypt’s Ain Sokha area. The factory will provide employment for up to 1,000 people, and is scheduled to be operational in 2017.

Siemens Financial Services arm has structured a financing package for Siemens in the contract, which will include a tailored guarantee concept. The loans, which are expected to be supported by Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) from Germany and Denmark, will be financed by large international and regional banks.

3) Kuwait Lower Fars Heavy Oil ($4.3bn)

In January, UK firm Petrofac and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Lower Fars heavy oil (LFHO) development project, with a bid of $4.3bn.

EPC tender is for the first phase of the project’s development and includes the construction of a steam injection facility, production facilities, a support complex, tank farms and a 270,000 barrel-a-day (b/d) pipeline to transport the heavy crude to the planned new refinery at Al-Zour in the south of Kuwait.

Mohammed al-Abduljaleel, KOC’s manager of capital project planning, told the MEED Kuwait Projects Conference held in Kuwait in November 2014 that phase one would produce 60,000 b/d by 2020.

Under the government’s plans, the development of heavy oil assets in the country is expected to help compensate for declines in conventional oil production.

Spread over 1,200 square kilometres in Kuwait’s northern desert, the Lower Fars reservoir contains between 7 billion and 15 billion barrels of oil in place.

The Lower Fars reservoirs contain heavy oil with a gravity ranging from 17 API to as low as 11, compared with Kuwait’s regular crude blends, which have an average gravity of about 30 API. It is also highly viscous, in the range of 200 to 1,000 centipoise (CP).

To address this, the project will use the cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) technique, where steam is injected into the reservoir to heat the highly viscous oil, making it easier to pump to the surface.

4) Qatar Metro Systems ($4.1bn)

In February, Qatar Railway Company awarded a consortium of Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corporation, Hitachi and Kinki Sharyo, as well as France’s Thales the estimated $4.1bn systems package of the Doha metro.

The contract involves turnkey construction of a fully automated driverless metro system.

Included are 75 sets of three-car trains, platform screen doors, tracks, a railway yard, and systems for signalling, power distribution, telecommunications and tunnel ventilation.

The package is also expected to include 20-year maintenance services for the metro system after its completion.

Leading the consortium, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will supply the power distribution system, platform screen doors, tracks and tunnel ventilation work, as well as assume all project management and system integration work.

Mitsubishi Corporation and Kinki Sharyo will jointly provide the railway cars, while Thales will supply the Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling, telecommunications and security, integrated operational control centre and automatic fare collection systems.

Meanwhile, Hitachi will perform some project management duties and also handle facilities management, including the supply of special maintenance vehicles.

5) Egypt Nuclear Power ($4bn)

In November, Cairo and Russian state nuclear provider Rosatom signed an agreement on 19 November for the construction and operation of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant at El-Dabaa.

The deal covers the development of a plant equipped with four reactors with a capacity of 1,200MW each.

It was signed by Egypt’s Minister of Electricity and Energy Mohamed Shaker and the director-general of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, Sergey Kirienko, in the presence of Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

MEED reported in October that the contract was in the finance stages of negotiation and a signing was expected by the end of this year.

In February, Al-Sisi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate on nuclear power, which was followed closely by a project development for the El-Dabaa scheme.

With Egypt having set a target for introducing nuclear energy into its power sector by 2022, if the target is to be met then it is vital the construction and financing agreements are finalised without delay.

Egypt’s nuclear programme was given fresh impetus following the election of Al-Sisi in May 2014. In his presidential inauguration speech on 9 June 2014, he announced the El-Dabaa nuclear project was a key government priority.

For Moscow, the Egypt award cements its position as the dominant nuclear power provider in the region.