(AFP, MANAMA) - The Bahrain Petroleum Co. (Bapco) and the French contracting company Alstom have signed a $31.8-million contract to modernise the emirate's refinery equipment, a newspaper reported Monday.
The contract is part of a $700-million plan to update Bapco's low-sulphur fuel oil and fluid catalytic cracking sectors, which now use 30-year-old pneumatic technology, with state-of-the-art electronics, the Bahrain Tribune said.
Economic benefits from the project, scheduled to start in September and run until July 2004, are put at $14.7 million a year, the newspaper said.
Bahrain's oil reserves are drying up but the country still produces around 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) and receives an entire output of 140,000 bpd from an offshore field shared with Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain only exports refined products, not crude, from Bapco's 250,000 bpd refinery.
© Agence France-Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
