Spain-based Tecnicas Reunidas is the lowest bidder with a price of $1.45 billion for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract of the fifth gas train that is being built by Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) at the Mina Al Ahmadi (MAA) refinery in Kuwait.
Upon completion in July 2019, the fifth gas train will be able to process 805 million cubic feet per day (mcfd) and 106,000 barrels per day (bpd) of NGL condensate. Four companies, namely Tecnicas Reunidas, Daelim Industrial, Petrofac and GS Engineering and Construction submitted bids for the EPC contract during the first week of March.
Located approximately 45 km south of Kuwait City the MAA refinery started operations in 1949 with only 25,000 bpd capacity. KNPC then took over the refinery in 1980 and as part of its mission to develop capacities for the refining of crude oil and liquefaction of associated gases, it continued with several expansions. The expansion of the MAA refinery is now one of the major packages of the $16 billion Clean Fuels Project (CFP). The estimated $1.53 billion fifth gas train project, which will use the upstream production capacity from Kuwait Oil Company and Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, will obtain most of its associated gas from the northern and south eastern oil fields, including the early production facilities projects and KNPC’s acid gas removal plant at MAA. The existing refinery gases from Shuaibah acid gas removal plant and MAA acid gas removal plant will also be supplied to the GT5 facilities.
Construction works on the facility includes a feed gas compressor station, feed gas dehydration unit, LPG dehydration unit, NGL recovery unit, fractionation and product treating unit.
Product recoveries would be at least 75 per cent ethane, 97 per cent propane and 99 per cent butane. Moreover, KNPC has also said that the current and future non-associated gas from Jurassic and Dorra gas fields will also be considered in the fifth gas train’s design. Amec Foster Wheeler, who had done the feasibility study and front end engineering and design works in 2008 and 2012 respectively, is the project management consultant (PMC) overseeing the scheme.
