Saudi Arabian Oil Co. has selected six companies as preferred bidders for the main construction contracts on its estimated $10 billion refinery joint venture at Yanbu with ConocoPhillips, Middle East Economic Digest reported Friday.

The Aramco/ConocoPhillips team has selected Tecnicas Reunidas of Spain for the refinery's main coker unit, while SK Engineering and Construction has been chosen for the crude distillation unit, Daelim Corp. for the gasoline unit and GS Engineering and Construction for the hydrocracker, the business weekly reported in its April 2 issue, citing a source close to Aramco.

Egypt's Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries is expected to build the refinery's main storage facilities and Dayim Punj Lloyd was picked for the construction of the offsite pipelines, MEED said.

Contract awards are being held up by ConocoPhillips, which is waiting until May to make a final investment decision on the project, according to MEED.

The 400,000-barrel-a-day export refinery will be located at Yanbu on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast.

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