Iraq’s North Refineries Company (NRC) has awarded the US’ Honeywell a $9m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to upgrade the automation systems at the 310,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) Baiji Refinery in the north of the country.

The firm will upgrade and replace NRC’s existing 30-year-old single-loop instrument control system to improve operational efficiencies, reliability and safety at the refinery.

Honeywell says its Process Solutions technology will manage a wide range of processes, helping to optimise yield while reducing maintenance costs by up to 30 per cent. It will also provide technical training to NRC staff on the new systems.  

In late May, a separate division of Honeywell, UOP was awarded a deal to provide reforming, isomerisation, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and hydrotreating technology for Iraq’s planned 300,000 b/d refinery at Nassiriya in the south of the country (MEED 26:5:11).