MEED

Initial phase to have a capacity of six million barrels

Oman Tank Terminal Company (OTTCO) has extended the bid submission deadline for the region’s largest crude storage facility at Ras Markaz.

The $400m facility, which is being developed as an alternative crude storage and transportation facility to the Strait of Hormuz has now asked pre-qualified contractors to submit bids by 23 June.

The first phase of the project to be built in the Al-Wusta governorate will have the capacity to store six million barrels and expandable to almost 200 million barrels in the future.

Around 4.4 million barrels from the initial phase will serve the $6bn Duqm refinery, which is close to awarding its first two packages.

The last package of the 230,000 barrel-a-day refinery includes eight storage tanks with 550,000 barrels capacity each and is currently in bid evaluation phase.

The first phase of Ras Markaz is expected to be completed in 2019. It will be located 70km south of Duqm and is the closest harbour to the special economic zone. It can handle crude super tankers and will be connected via a new 440km pipeline to Oman’s main onshore oil fields.

MEED reported that OTTCO had short-listed the following firms to submit bids for the engineering, procurement and construction deal for the storage facility:

• China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation (China)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (Enppi) / Petrojet (Egypt)
• IOT Infrastructure & Energy Services (India)
• Larsen & Toubro (India)
• Punj Lloyd (India)
• Rotary Engineering (UAE)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung C&T (South Korea)
• Van Oord (Netherlands)

The development of Duqm refinery forms part of the sultanate’s efforts to diversify its economy, through integrated energy and logistics projects in towns such as Sohar and Salalah.