Dubai

The pre-front end engineering and designing contract for the world’s largest refinery and petrochemicals complex being built in Ruwais by Adnoc Refining has gone to the Wood Group.

The award of the contract is the second stage in a four-stage process to get to the beginning of construction. The previous stage was a feasibility study. The scope of the latest contract is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

The refinery is to have a capacity of 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The contract follows last month’s signing of two strategic equity partnerships between ADNOC and Eni and OMV, covering both ADNOC Refining and a new trading joint venture, which will be jointly established by the three partners. Eni and OMV will acquire 20 and 15 per cent stakes in Adnoc Refining, with Adnoc owning the remaining.

The new refinery will be designed to have full conversion capability and allow integration with petrochemicals industries in Ruwais, which is already the fourth largest single site refinery in the world.

It was in May last that Adnoc announced plans to invest, alongside partners, in creating the world’s largest and most advanced integrated refining and petrochemicals complex at Ruwais. The aim was to raise expansion of refining capacity by more than 65 per cent by 2025, creating a total capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day (mbpd).