20% of contracts to go to private-sector contractors
KUWAIT CITY: Twenty-per cent of the $6-billion oil refinery project, the largest in Kuwait, in Ras Al Zour will go to contractors, says Osamah Ali Al-Atawneh, Tam Leader, Const. & Quality Assurance, New Refinery Project, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). He was talking at a meeting organized by KNPC at Kuwait Chamber of Commerce Wednesday aimed at briefing the local manufacturers and contractors about the new oil-refinery project. In his introduction, Hatem Al Awadhi, Executive Asst Managing Director, Projects Department, said the new refinery is a strategic and ecological project that aims at producing oil fuel for power generation. The refinery will have a capacity to produce about 225,000 barrels of low-sulfur fuel oil "which will reduce fuel emissions and help to protect the environment in Kuwait." The project, spread on an area of 7 million sq meters, is located in Al Zour, North of the Al Zour power station.
Assessment
The project is estimated to be completed by April of 2010. According to the project schedule, main EPC prequalification will be completed by Dec, 2005, feed packages by Feb 2006, and tendering and awarding of EPC contracts will be finalized by Nov 2006. The EPC phase is estimated to start in Dec 2006 and end by Dec 2009. Al Awadhi listed out meeting of K-EPA limits for an environmentally friendly refinery, quantitative risk assessment, minimum waste generation, latest design and control monitoring system and strategic inventory of fuel oil among others as some of the key features of the project.
Al Atawneh, for his part, spoke about the project's execution strategy and said KNPC has lined up Fluor Limited as PMC in Phase I, in which the company will prepare the feed package and ITB documents. The project will be executed through a number of contracts covering different sections of the refinery, and the works will be divided into many EPC packages on LSTK basis and will be tendered though CTC. KNPC will allot temporary areas near the location for use by the contactors for workshops and camps. There will be 3 to 5 EPC packages in the project which will be finalized upon completion of prequalification of the main EPC contactors. KNPC will contractually require EPC contractors to award works worth 10 to 15 per cent of the overall value of the contract to the local contractors and manufacturers. Locally manufactured items should conform to the following conditions: the product should be manufactured in Kuwait, and should meet the project specifications and purchaser's terms and conditions, the prices should be comparable to products from foreign origins, and the quantity and delivery schedule must be met.
The main units in the refinery will be: 3 crude destination units, 3 Sulphurization units, 3 diesel treating units, 2 naphtha treating units and 2 Kerosene treating units. A total of 2,628 equipments will be used for project which will include 75 reactors, 78 towers, 414 vessels, 109 field fabricated tanks, 623 shell and tube exchangers, 93 air cooler exchangers, 29 heaters, 2 flares, 6 boilers, 797 pumps, 60 compressors and other miscellaneous equipments. Some of the main works involved in the project are: site and earth works, covering 16.4 million cubic meters, 500,000 cubic meters of concrete works, 50,000 metric tons of structural steel works, 29,000 sq meters of buildings, 1.3 million linear meters of piping, and 6 million linear meters of electrical cables. The manpower estimates include thousands of laborers, carpenters, concrete finishers, iron workers, operators (for cranes, and other heavy duty vehicles), boiler markers, pipe fitters, welders and electricians among others.
By Valiya S. Sajjad
© Arab Times 2005
