Eight international companies have submitted bids to building a new Kuwaiti oil refinery, local newspaper Arab Times reported Sunday.

An official oil source was quoted as saying that besides the eight international companies, some smaller companies are also expected to submit their bids before August, the period set by Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) for interested companies to submit their bids.

KNPC invited international companies for a pre-qualification round two weeks ago for participation in the project with an estimated cost of 5 billion US dollars, the source said.

The capacity of the new refinery is approximately 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) and the completion of this project together with another project for developing the existing oil refineries in Ahmadi and Abdullah will take the total capacity of oil refineries to 1.2 million bpd.

The new oil refinery is expected to replace Al-Shuaiba oil refinery in 2010, which consists of treatment units as well as buildings, facilities and other installations, said the report.

Kuwait is presently operating three oil refineries with a total production capacity of 920,000 bpd.

Source: Xinhua