MOSCOW (MRC) -- KBR has announced that its SOCAR-KBR joint venture was awarded a significant project management consultancy (PMC) contract for the Heydar Aliyev Baku oil refinery modernization project in Azerbaijan. as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
This award marks the first major award to the joint venture, SOCAR-KBR Ltd. (SOCAR-KBR LLC), since its inception in mid-2015.
SOCAR-KBR LLC was created to provide design, engineering, technical, consultancy, procurement, construction supervision and project management services for all brownfield and greenfield projects across the upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas sectors, in the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey (AGT) region.
This company was formed to help Azerbaijan's ambition for creating a world-class Azerbaijan-based engineering company, according to project officials.
SOCAR-KBR LLC says it aims to build upon KBR's long-term project experience in Azerbaijan to perform project management services from its offices in Baku for the Baku modernization project.
"The Heydar Aliyev refinery reconstruction project is currently one of the most important investments for SOCAR globally, and I am very happy that this project is in the capable hands of one of SOCAR's own entities-namely the SOCAR-KBR joint venture," Rovnag Abdullayev, SOCAR's president, said at the signing ceremony.
The overall refinery capacity will be increased from 6 MMtpy to 7.5 MMtpy, while the catalytic cracking unit capacity will be increased from 2 MMtpy to 2.5 MMtpy. Additionally, Euro 5 standards will be established for all refined products.
The modernization of the Heydar Aliyev Baku oil refinery will begin immediately and will be completed by late 2018, with an estimated capital cost of USD1 billion for the total project, according to the companies.
The value of the PMC contract was not disclosed and will be booked into the backlog of unfilled orders for KBR's engineering and construction business segment for the first quarter of 2016.
As MRC reported earlier, in October 2015, State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) subsidiary Azerikimya Production Union (PU) entered two units into operation at its ethylene and polyethylene (PE) plant in Sumgait, north of Baku. The company commissioned a 87,600-tonne/year (tpy) unit for the desulfurization of liquefied gas and a 120,000-tpy installation for the hydrogenation of butylene-butadiene fractions. Azerikimya also recently commissioned an isopropyl alcohol unit at the petrochemical plant, which produces 260,000 tpy of ethylene and PE.
SOCAR, which is keen on expanding operations in the retail oil products market abroad, is involved in exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate, marketing petroleum and petrochemical products in the domestic and international markets, and supplying natural gas to industry and the public in Azerbaijan. SOCAR Polymer is a subsidiary of SOCAR. The entity was formed at the end of 2013 to run investments at the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, a production park which intends to become a chemical hub in central Asia.
MRC