Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) announced today that its construction group has been awarded contracts for construction work on the El Merk Central Processing Facility (CPF) in the Berkine Basin of Algeria. The facility will be located in Block 208, 250 km south east of Hassi Messaoud in the Algerian Sahara Desert.
The El Merk central processing facility will serve as a production hub for the region, processing hydrocarbons initially from Block 208, operated by Groupement Berkine, an Algerian entity that is co-managed by Sonatrach and Anadarko, and from the unitised EMK field located on a portion of both Block 208 and the Sonatrach/ConocoPhillips operated Block 405a.
OCI, in a 50/50 joint venture with Bentini of Italy, signed a US$ 230 million contract directly with Groupement Berkine for the CPF’s ‘Base de Vie’ and Industrial Base facility. The package, let on a design-and-build basis, includes all necessary infrastructure and buildings for the CPF. In addition, OCI signed a US$ 170 million contract with Petrofac International LLC, who were awarded the principal EPC contract for the El Merk CPF last month, for civil and structural steel works on the facility. The required steel structures and platforms will be supplied by National Steel Fabrication (NSF), a subsidiary of OCI, from their production plants in both Egypt and Algeria.
OCI’s total share of the contracts is approximately US$ 280 million. The contracts will take approximately 30 months to complete and are scheduled for completion during Q4 2011.© 2009 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
