Amec Foster Wheeler on Friday announced that it has been granted a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract by Sonatrach SPA for three new refineries situated in Biskra, Tiaret and Hassi Messaoud, Algeria.

The refineries are to have a capacity of 5 million tpa of Algerian crude oil each and have facilities for atmospheric distillation, Liquefied Petroleum Gas separation, hydrocrackers, desulphurization, bitumen production, utilities, blending, effluents treatment, control room as well as laboratories. The Biskra site is to also have lubrication oil facilities.

Amec Foster Wheeler is to also assist Sonatrach in selecting technology licensors for all the refineries. However, work on the three refineries is estimated to be concluded by Q3 of 2017.

“Sonatrach is a long-term customer of Amec Foster Wheeler and this is a strategically important project for the Algerian Oil & Gas industry. We will apply our significant global refinery expertise to enable maximum efficiency of these three new refineries,” Roberto Penno, Amec Foster Wheeler’s Group President for Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Southern Europe, told Energy Global.

Anita Fatunji