State-owned Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) has awarded Canadian engineering contractor SNC-Lavalin a $180m contract for commissioning management support services at the Al-Zour Refinery in Kuwait.

Under the agreement, SNC-Lavalin will provide commissioning technical services, including:

• Masterplan
• Start-up programme development
• Risk assessment and management
• Commissioning management support
• Operations readiness and assurance
• Project phase execution activities
• Training, competency development and assurance
• Documentation preparation.

The contract also calls upon SNC-Lavalin to develop a knowledge management system and provide e-learning services, software, procedures and conducting a safe and efficient start-up and operations.

The Al-Zour refinery will have the biggest refining capacity in the Middle East, and is designed to refine 615,000 barrels a day (b/d) at maximum capacity, increasing Kuwait’s national refining capacity to more than 1.5 million b/d.

US-based Fluor Corporation is doing the front-end engineering and design (feed) work on the project estimated to be worth $18bn.

The refinery will produce high value products, and will predominantly produce low sulphur fuel oil to replace high sulphur fuel oil that is presently used in local power generation plants.

Other refinery end products will include ultra-low sulphur diesel and kerosene, petrochemical naphtha, granulated sulphur and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).