Sonatrach to expand petroleum gas complex
Posted: 16 October 2007
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Algeria ’s state-run energy firm Sonatrach has awarded two Japanese firms a $1.1 billion contract to expand the world’s largest liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) complex, the company said on Thursday.
Under the agreement, Itochu and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) will build a new refining plant and storage facilities for the GP1Z complex in western Algeria .
Construction is slated for completion by mid-2010.
Once operational the new refinery is to produce three million tonnes of LPG per year, increasing GP1Z’s capacity to nine million tonnes a year.
Itochu and IHI also handled previous expansion projects at GP1Z in 1984 and 1998.
Algeria is currently making a big push to develop its massive reserves of natural gas in order to fund economic expansion. The country has some of the largest gas reserves in the world.
In July Sonatrach signed a $2.88 billion deal with US engineering and construction company Kellog Brown & Root (KBR) for the construction of the country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, capable of producing 4.5 million tonnes of liquefied gas per year. |
