Kuwait has prequalified 11 international companies for the construction of a new $6.3 billion oil refinery with a capacity of more than 600,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), which owns all Kuwaiti refineries, said the project had been divided into four major contracts. Manufacturing units in the refinery have been divided into two tenders, while the third is for building utilities and services and the fourth for storage tanks and a pier.
The prequalified companies include Technip Italy, Foster Wheeler Italiana, and South Korea’s GS Engineering and Construction Corp SK Engineering and Construction and Hyundai Engineering and Construction, US' Stone and Webster International and UAE-based Petrofac International.
The refinery will be built in Al Zour area, some 100 km south of the capital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The project is planned to be completed in early 2010.
Kuwait currently has three refineries at Al Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba, all in the emirate's southern region with a a combined refining capacity of about 915,000 bpd.
State-owned KNPC plans to modernise the first two at an estimated cost of $3 billion, a project planned for completion in early 2011.