Japan’s JGC Corporation has been awarded a contract by the Bahrain Petroleum Company to build facilities for the production of low-sulfur diesel. JGC came in with the lowest bid for the expansion tender at $431.6 million, reported Bahrain’s State Minister, Ali Mirza.
Under the agreement, JGC will build a new 40,000-barrel per day (bpd) hydrocracker and a hydrogen plant for the new cracker at the Sitra refinery. Moreover, the firm will upgrade the existing 45,000 bpd hydrocracker to produce low-sulphur diesel, reported Bahrain Tribune.
The project is part of $900 million modernization program for Sitra aimed at reducing the amount of sulphur in diesel oil to 0.05 percent from the current level of 0.5 percent.
BAPCO was formed in 1929 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Caltex Petroleum Corporation, a joint venture of Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) and the Texas Company (now Texaco). Construction of a small 10,000 barrel-per-day refinery followed, with operations commencing in July 1936.
The refinery expanded over the years to its current capacity of more than 250,000 barrels per day, supplying a range of petroleum products for local and export markets. Approximately one-sixth of its crude oil is obtained from wells in Bahrain, the balance being supplied from Saudi Arabia through undersea pipelines.
Caltex retained a 40-percent share in the company following incorporation as a joint venture with the Bahrain government in 1981, and in April 1997 the Bahrain government assumed total ownership of the company. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
