UK engineering firm Amec Foster Wheeler has won a contract worth more than $300m for integrating Petrochemical Industries Company’s (PIC’s) Olefins III, Aromatics II and Al-Zour Refinery.

The six-year contract includes front-end engineering and design work to be completed in early 2018 and will lead up to the award of the project management deal, according to sources close to the scheme.

Companies will be invited to bid for the main contract in mid-2018, the sources say.

MEED reported that Kuwait would tender the design contract on its third mixed feed cracker by early 2017.

The project is estimated to cost between $7bn to $10bn, with the aromatics complex alone expected to cost $5bn, and will be integrated with the $14bn Al-Zour refinery project.

PIC joint venture Equate, which managed, operated and maintained Olefins I and II, told MEED it would not be involved in the third phase of the scheme.

Olefins III will produce 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of polyethylene and 400,000-600,000 t/y of polypropylene when it becomes operational by the second quarter of 2022.

Feedstock for the project will be a mix of ethane, off gases, propane and combinations with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha and condensate. The products are primarily targeted at Asia, with secondary markets being the Middle East and Europe.