State refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said on Sunday it will announce the winners of a tender to build a 615,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in two weeks, the official news agency reported. KNPC was still evaluating the bids for what would be the OPEC producer's fourth refinery, Al-Zour, KNPC spokesman Mohammad Al-Ajmi told the agency. Kuwait has said that more than 10 firms presented bids for the refinery's five packages, among them Italian, French and US companies. KNPC has delayed the tender several times and more than doubled the budget to $14 billion amid spiraling costs in the oil industry. The agency did not say whether the budget would be increase further to $19 billion, as reported by al-Rai newspaper earlier this month. The Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) said on Friday in an unsourced report that KNPC had chosen winning bids for five contracts for the construction of the refinery. The London-based weekly magazine said a joint venture including JGC Corp. of Japan and GS Engineering and Construction Corp of South Korea were set to take the refinery's largest deal. Al-Zour refinery is a part of Kuwait's plan to boost refining capacity to 1.415 million bpd from about 930,000 bpd now. Kuwait plans to shut down its ageing 200,000 bpd Shuaiba refinery. __
