Saudi Arabia has extended a deadline for bids to build a crude oil refinery with capacity of up to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) to November 7, a Saudi industry source said on Saturday.

The tender for the Jizan plant has been delayed several times. The initial plan envisaged bidding in 2007.

"Some of them (bidders) asked for more time ... Nov. 7 is the due date to submit the bids," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The extension would not affect the ministry's plans to award the contract as scheduled, the source added.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said earlier this year that it planned to award a contract for building the refinery by the end of November based on a bidding process set for September 2.

The Jizan refinery is far from oil fields and is part of a wider plan to develop the impoverished southern region near the border with Yemen.

The refinery will have a capacity to process between 250,000 to 400,000 bpd of crude oil. It would be the first Saudi oil refinery to be 100 per cent privately owned.

The world's top oil exporter has ambitious plans to overhaul and expand its refining operations at home and abroad. It envisages domestic refining capacity rising by more than 1.7 million bpd by 2015 from the current level of 2.1 million bpd.

The oil ministry said last year that 43 foreign firms and eight Saudi companies including state oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco, had been pre-qualified for the tender.-Reuters