How equipment is actually bought on EPC projects. When the buying really starts, how a package goes from bid to award, how you get into each contractor's database, and where good suppliers lose.
On an EPC project the contractor buys the equipment, usually inside a fixed price and a fixed date. The buying starts in FEED, long before a package goes out, because that is when the contractor firms up its vendor quotes and its design. When the package does go out, it runs through competitive bids, a technical and commercial evaluation and owner review before award. To be in that bid list you need to be in the contractor's supplier database, and every contractor runs its own. Registration gets you in the room. It does not win the order.
My EPC wins tell the story. The £1.9M Marjan package for Aramco came through Técnicas Reunidas, after I inherited the project late. I won a $250K mining project in Chile through Bechtel and closed a £250K project with Fluor in Greece. Every one of them was decided by engineers and buyers inside the contractor, not by a portal.
FIDIC, the body that publishes the standard international contract forms, wrote its EPC Turnkey form, the Silver Book, for projects where certainty of final price, and often of completion date, matters most. FIDIC also says the form is not suitable where the employer intends to supervise closely or control the contractor's work.
That tells you how the contractor thinks. It has promised a price and a date. Every piece of equipment it buys is a risk to both. So it favours suppliers it already trusts, products its engineers already know, and deliveries it can believe. A cheaper unknown is not a saving to an EPC. It is a risk it has to price.
Front End Engineering Design is where the project is defined. On two stage deals, a Mayer Brown paper published by FIDIC describes the first stage as a reimbursable FEED contract. During it the contractor does its design, obtains firm vendor quotations, may even order certain long lead equipment, and firms up the scope of supply. Only then is the contract converted into a lump sum turnkey price.
Read that again from the supplier's side. The vendor quotes that set the budget are gathered before the main contract is fixed. If you are not quoting in FEED, you are quoting against a design and a number someone else shaped. You can still win from there, on price, delivery or a sharper commercial case, but you are pushing uphill. My EPC contractor strategy covers how I get into that window.
Contracts differ, so take this as one real example, not a universal rule. The 2018 EPC contract between Sabine Pass Liquefaction and Bechtel, filed on the SEC record by Cheniere, sets out the contractor's procurement duties in plain terms:
Two things follow. First, the technical evaluation comes before the commercial one counts. Fail it and your price is never compared. Second, the owner sees the recommendation before award, so the operator's view of you matters even when the contractor is buying.
There is no single EPC vendor list. Each contractor qualifies its own suppliers, and here is how five of them describe it on their own pages.
Look at McDermott's question again. What will help us win work. That is the whole game in one line. The contractor is not looking for another supplier. It is looking for an advantage on its next bid.
On Gulf projects there are at least two gates. The operator runs its own registration and approval. Aramco approves manufacturers item by item and calls its list the Regulated Vendor List. ADNOC runs registration and prequalification through its Supplier Hub. Then each EPC contractor runs its own qualification, as above. Being approved by the operator does not put you in Técnicas Reunidas' database, and being in Bechtel's database does not get you approved by Aramco.
Work both from the start. My guides to Aramco vendor registration and ADNOC supplier registration cover the operator side, and local content scoring through ICV in the UAE and the LCGPA in Saudi Arabia feeds into both.
Three patterns cost suppliers these packages.
Too late. They wait for the RFQ. By then FEED has gathered its quotes, the design reflects someone else's product, and the budget was set on someone else's number.
Wrong door. They register on the portal and wait. Bechtel says registration is no guarantee of future engagement or work. Petrofac says accepting your profile does not guarantee you an opportunity to bid. The portal is the entry ticket. The engineers and the package buyers are the people who decide.
Weak technical bid. They treat the bid as a price. The technical evaluation comes first, and a bid that leaves the engineer with questions loses to one that does not, whatever the number.
The portal gets you into the database. FEED, the engineers and the technical bid decide whether you get the order.
Contractors decide who they qualify and who they buy from. Nobody can sell you a place on a bid list, and I do not. What I do is put you in front of the right engineering and procurement people at the contractors I know, at the right point in the project, with a technical case they can use. Técnicas Reunidas, Saipem, McDermott, Tecnimont, Petrofac, Bechtel and Worley are contractors I work with. Read EPC contractor strategy, Getting Specified on ADNOC and Aramco Projects and the Marjan case study for how it plays out.
It is the P in engineering, procurement and construction. The EPC contractor buys the equipment and materials for the project on the owner's behalf, inside a contract that usually fixes the price and the completion date. For a supplier, it means your real customer on the package is the contractor's engineering and procurement teams, with the owner reviewing key decisions.
Earlier than most suppliers think. On two stage deals the first stage is a reimbursable FEED contract, and during it the contractor obtains firm vendor quotations and may even order long lead equipment, according to a Mayer Brown paper published by FIDIC. By the time a lump sum price is fixed, much of the equipment thinking is done.
Through competitive bids and a technical and commercial evaluation. In the 2018 Sabine Pass contract between Sabine Pass Liquefaction and Bechtel, the contractor must invite enough qualified suppliers to get at least three bona fide bids on reimbursable purchases unless the owner agrees otherwise, and must issue a complete technical and commercial bid evaluation with a recommendation to the owner before any award.
Each contractor runs its own route. Técnicas Reunidas uses its eSupplier portal with a qualification questionnaire. Petrofac asks for a company profile, ISO 9001 certificate and three year supply history, then invites suitable suppliers to its portal in periodic cycles. McDermott starts with an email to its supplier support team. MAIRE and Tecnimont use SupplHi. Bechtel uses its Supplier Portal.
No. Bechtel says registration is no guarantee of future engagement or work. Petrofac says accepting your profile does not guarantee you an opportunity to bid. Registration gets you into the database. The engineering and the relationships decide who is used.
No. Operators such as Aramco and ADNOC run their own supplier registration and approval, and each EPC contractor runs its own supplier database and qualification. A large EPC contract can also carry its own list of approved subcontractors and major equipment. Plan for all three.
Sources: FIDIC, EPC/Turnkey Contract 2nd Ed (2017 Silver Book) · Jonathan Hosie, Mayer Brown, on fidic.org · Cheniere SEC filing, 2018, Sabine Pass EPC contract · Técnicas Reunidas registration guide · Petrofac, vendors and suppliers · McDermott, doing business with us · MAIRE, apply to be a supplier · Bechtel Supplier Portal user guide. Checked 12 November 2026. Contractors change their processes, so confirm current steps with each one before you apply.
If you are in the database and the packages keep going elsewhere, the problem is the timing, the engineering relationships or the technical bid. That is the part I own.