MUSCAT: Local and international engineering firms have been invited to participate in a competitive tender for a contract to undertake the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of a new Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) extraction project at Saih Nihayda in central Oman. The upstream project will supply feedstock for a major petrochemicals complex planned at the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (SEZAD).

OQ, the integrated energy group and a company of the Oman Investment Authority (OIA), is overseeing the development of the NGL extraction plant. On November 13, the company launched the prequalification process for suitably qualified engineering firms interested in bidding for the FEED contract.

“A key step in advancing Oman’s integrated energy infrastructure, the NGL Extraction Project spans the full NGL value chain — from extraction in Saih Nihayda to fractionation and export facilities in Al Duqm” OQ said in a statement accompanying the tender announcement.

“The NGL extraction facilities will be located at Saih Nihayda (SN), with NGLs transported to Al Duqm, where they will be fractionated and stored for export. The company wishes to prequalify firms capable of undertaking FEED, detailed engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) for LPG/NGL facilities — from the FEED stage through to successful completion, including commissioning and performance guarantees”, OQ added.

The start of the tendering process comes just over a week after OQ signed an agreement with the Integrated Gas Company (IGC), the Sultanate of Oman’s sole aggregator and supplier of natural gas, to secure feedstock for the NGL extraction plant. Under the agreement, the two sides signed a supply term sheet guaranteeing the delivery of 48 million cubic metres of natural gas per day for 20 years to the Saih Nihayda NGL Extraction Project.

Phase One of the project will include gas separation, storage and export facilities in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm. The term sheet further allocates gas resources, as a Phase Two component, to the planned Duqm Petrochemicals Complex, which is envisioned to have an ethane production capacity of around one million tonnes per year. This will help create an integrated industrial ecosystem that enhances in-country value.

NGL plants play a vital role in turning natural gas into high-value petrochemical feedstocks. Products such as ethane, propane, butane and condensate are essential feedstocks for steam crackers and downstream units that produce ethylene, polyethylene, polypropylene and other core chemical building blocks.

Oman’s first dedicated NGL extraction plant became operational at Fahud in 2020 to feed the Liwa Plastics Industries Complex in Suhar. A 300-km pipeline transports NGLs from Fahud to the complex at SOHAR Port and Freezone. Built at a cost of around $688 million, the plant is designed to process 670 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas. Oman LNG’s Qalhat complex is also a producer of NGLs as a by-product of LNG liquefaction. The deadline for submission of prequalification documents is December 10.

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