Bahrain will start tendering major oil and gas projects worth more than $6b over the next few months, Energy Minister and National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) chairman Dr Abdulhussain Mirza told delegates at the third Middle East Process Engineering Conference (Mepec 2015), reported Trade Arabia.

Tenders will be issued for the expansion and modernisation of the Bapco refinery specifically in the first half of next year.

According to ABC Bahrain, the minister added that the refinery’s capacity should increase from 260,000  to 360,000 b/d.

Estimates have put the cost in the $3 to $5bn range.

“We are also in the final stages to award a contract for the construction of an LNG terminal with 400 million standard cubic feet per day capacity, with an option to increase the capacity to 800m standard cubic feet”, Dr Mirza said, adding that the LNG terminal’s cost is projected at $400m.