Al-Zour oil refinery project : COOEC-Fluor JV wraps up module program

COOEC-Fluor Heavy Industries’ fabrication yard in Zhuhai, China, has wrapped up the entire module program for the Al-Zour oil refinery project being developed by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) in Kuwait.

The joint venture supplied 188 modules in 20 separate shipments that have a combined weight of 65,000 metric tons for the refinery project which is being built with an investment of around $19 billion. Apart from that, the fabrication yard in Zhuhai engineered 95,000 plus pipe spools of carbon, stainless steel and alloy pipe which will be installed by the project team at the Al-Zour refinery project.

The pipe spool fabrication portion of the contract for the Al-Zour refinery project was completed by COOEC-Fluor Heavy Industries in October.

The final module shipment, which weighs 8,600 metric tons, was dispatched from COOEC-Fluor and had arrived recently at the project site in Kuwait.

Shipping of the final module assembly for the Al-Zour oil refinery project in Kuwait. Photo courtesy of Business Wire.

Commenting on the Al-Zour oil refinery project milestone, Chris Vertanness – vice president and director of operations at the COOEC-Fluor Heavy Industries fabrication yard in Zhuhai, said: “The COOEC-Fluor yard completed the modular program over a period of 24 months from the start of steel fabrication to load out of the last modules.

“The COOEC-Fluor team has accomplished numerous fabrication and logistics milestones on this project working closely with the Fluor-led joint venture team, and I look forward to continuing to show the world what our yard can do.”

The Al-Zour oil refinery project is located in Al Zour, nearly 90 kilometers south of Kuwait City, near the existing Al-Zour South Power Plant. Upon its completion, the new oil refinery in Kuwait is likely to become one of the largest refineries in the world with a production capacity of 615,000 barrels per day of light Kuwait crude oil or 535,000 barrels per day of heavy mix Kuwait crude oil.

The Al-Zour refinery project will produce low sulfur fuel oil, which will be used instead of high sulfur fuel oil in Kuwaiti power plants.