Amec Foster Wheeler secures FEED contract for Sonatrach’s refineries in Algeria

Amec Foster Wheeler has secured a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for Sonatrach’s three new refineries in Biskra, Tiaret and Hassi Messaoud in Algeria.

The refineries will have a capacity of five million tonnes per annum of Algerian crude oil each.

They also contain facilities for atmospheric distillation, liquefied petroleum gas separation, hydrocrackers, desulphurisation, bitumen production, utilities, blending, and effluents treatment, as well as a control room and laboratories.

Sonatrach’s Biskra site will also house lubrication oil facilities.

Each of the refineries will have administrative buildings, storage tanks and shipping facilities.

Under the contract, Amec Foster Wheeler will also offer support to Sonatrach concerning the selection of technology licensors for all three refineries.

Amec Foster Wheeler Asia, Middle East, Africa & Southern Europe group president Roberto Penno said: "Sonatrach is a long-term customer of Amec Foster Wheeler and this is a strategically important project for the Algerian oil and gas industry.

"We will apply our significant global refinery expertise to enable maximum efficiency of these three new refineries."

Amec Foster Wheeler expects to complete the work in the third quarter of 2017.

Separately, Reuters reported Sonatrach plans to make a $3.2bn investment over four years to increase the capacity of its pipeline.