Nine international firms have applied to prequalify for an estimated $900 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender to construct a petrochemical plant in Shuaiba, recently.

US-based Foster Wheeler, Japan’s JGC, Italy’s Tecnimont, France’s Technip, and South Korea’s Daelim Industrial, Hyundai Engineering and Construction, SK Engineering & Construction and LG Engineering and Construction.
Production capacity will be 650,000 tonnes of benzene and paraxylene and 500,000 tonnes of monomers annually. The feedstock will be 5.2 million tonnes per year of naphtha, which will be supplied by the Kuwait National Petroleum Company. Production is due to begin in 2007.