Bahrain Petroleum Co., or Bapco, expects to award a front-end engineering and design contract to expand its only refinery in the first quarter of next year, Alwasat reported, citing Chief Executive Officer Gordon Smith.

The state-run company will draw up a master plan for the project next month and complete the expansion in 2018, Smith said, according to the Bahraini newspaper. Bapco will also award construction contracts this year to enlarge the pipeline carrying oil to the refinery from neighboring Saudi Arabia, the report said.

The planned expansion of the refinery’s capacity to more than 450,000 barrels a day from 260,000 barrels would require investment of $6 billion to $10 billion, Bahrain’s Oil Minister Abdul Hussain Ali Mirza said on May 8.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wael Mahdi in Manama at wmahdi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net