State oil giant Saudi Aramco has extended the closing date for bids to build the kingdom's largest gas plant, industry sources said on Thursday.

The due date to submit bids for the onshore packages has been pushed to Oct. 24 from a September deadline, sources said. Wasit would be designed to process up to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of gas from the Arabiyah and Hasbah offshore sour gas fields.

After completing a crude oil capacity expansion plan last year, the world's top oil exporter has focused on developing gas production to meet rapidly rising domestic demand.   

Aramco has given no cost estimate for the Wasit plant, but industry sources said it would cost between $6 billion and $8 billion.   

The packages include a gas unit, a cogeneration power plant, a sulphur recovery unit with utilities and the final package is for a natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation plant.   

Engineering and construction companies lined up to bid by Nov. 7 for the construction of offshore packages related to the plant.

Canada's SNC-Lavalin has completed the front-end engineering and design work for the plant. - Reuters