KBR-SOCAR wins Azeri refinery contract

KBR has announced that its joint venture with the Azeri state oil company (SOCAR) has won a significant project management consultancy (PMC) contract to modernise the Heydar Aliyev Baku oil refinery in Azerbaijan.

The refinery’s processing capacity will be increased from 6m to 7.5m t/y, its catalytic cracking unit from 2m to 2.5m t/y, with Euro 5 standards for all refined products.

The modernisation will begin immediately and is set to be completed by late 2018 at a cost of US$1bn, KBR said in a statement. It has not disclosed the value of its PMC contract.

The contract is the first awarded to the KBR-SOCAR joint venture, which was formed last year to help Azerbaijan achieve its ambition of creating a world-class engineering company. It was set up to provide design, engineering, technical, consultancy, procurement, construction supervision and project management services for projects across the upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas sectors, in the Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey region.