Egypt’s state-owned Middle East Oil Refinery Company’s (Midor) has awarded France's TechnipFMC a $1.7bn contract to expand its refinery complex in Alexandria.

The plant is located in Alexandria’s El-Amreya Free Zone, and its capacity will be increased by 60 per cent from 115,000 barrels a day (b/d) to 175,000 b/d. TechnipFMC will provide construction, supplies, and engineering designs for the expansion.

Alongside increasing Midor’s crude processing capacity, the expansion also will raise the refinery’s current production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by about 145,000 tonnes a year (t/y), benzene 95 by about 600,000 t/y and jet fuel by about 1.3 million t/y.

The total cost of Midor’s expansion project – which will be co-executed by Egypt’s state-run firms ENPPI and Petrojet – will amount to about $2.2bn, the ministry said.

The Egyptian government previously let contracts to TechnipFMC and US-based Honeywell UOP for work on previous phases of the Midor expansion project.