Essar Projects-Saipem JV awarded KNPC's $1.6 billion EPC contract

Order book swells to $2.8 billion

Essar Projects, the engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) arm of Essar Group, has, along with Italy's Saipem S.p.A, won a $1.57 billion order from Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) for setting up Al-Zour Refinery Project, in the State of Kuwait. Essar Projects has a join venture with Italy's Saipem S.p.A.

The New Refinery Project at Al Zour is Kuwait's biggest development project with crude processing capacity of 615,000 barrels per day (bpd).

With this order, Essar Project's order book has swelled to $2.8 billion, with projects being executed in nine countries. The company has a track record of setting up large and complex projects in Oil & Gas (E&P as well as refineries), Power, Ports and Steel. It is currently focusing on third-party orders, particularly in the Middle East, where the company sees significant opportunities, the companies said in a press statement.

KNPC has awarded four Contracts for the refinery's construction, worth over $13.2 billion to successful International bidders.

The scope for the KNPC contract includes Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Pre-commissioning and assistance during commissioning, start-up and performance testing, Tank Farms for the of the Al-Zour Refinery Project (ZOR). Essar's portion comprises build-out of tankages, roads and bridges, as well as civil work, on an EPC basis. The project is expected to be completed by 2019.