Germany’s MAN Diesel & Turbo (MDT) has been awarded a contract by Oman Oil Refineries & Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) to carry out maintenance work at Oman’s largest oil refinery, located in Sohar.

MDT will mobilise a team of 100 specialists to carry out a revamp of the refinery’s residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) unit during the maintenance shutdown due to take place in the first quarter of 2016.

The company is preparing a list of long-lead items needed for the revamp, which MDT says will be the biggest shutdown scheme it has ever carried out.

The revamp of the RFCC is needed to sustain the long-term reliability of the refinery.

Orpic is currently expanding the capacity of the Sohar refinery to 187,000 barrels a day (b/d). In November 2013, an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract worth $2.1bn was awarded to a joint venture of South Korea’s Daelim Industrial and UK-based Petrofac for the project.