Contractors attend Egypt hydrocracker kick-off meeting

01 October 2020
The Assiut Oil Refining Company (ASORC) project is worth $2.5bn

Assiut Oil Refining Company (ASORC), a subsidiary of the Egyptian government-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), has held a kick-off meeting for its planned $2.5bn hydrocracking complex, which is due to be built as part of its Assuit oil refinery upgrade.

ASORC signed a contract for the construction of a mazut hydrocracking complex in the Assiut region with France's Technip in February.

The project will be the largest oil refining project to be implemented in Upper Egypt so far.

Egypt's Enppi and Petrojet will both work on the project under Technip.

Enppi will undertake engineering work while Petrojet will carry out construction work.

The project will refine mazut, a low-value product, and transform it into petroleum products of a higher value, mainly diesel with European specifications.

The complex in Assiut will have a production capacity of 2.8 million tonnes a year and the facility will also produce butane and naphtha, used in the production of high-octane gasoline.

The project has been designed to help meet domestic demand for refined products in the Upper Egypt region.

The project is expected to provide job opportunities in the Upper Egypt area, according to a statement released by the Petroleum Ministry earlier this year.

Covid disruption

Egypt has seen major disruption to hydrocarbons projects over 2020, amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

The total value of active oil, gas and chemical projects in Egypt has declined by 20 per cent since the start of 2020, according to data recorded by MEED Projects.

The value of active chemical projects has declined by 12 per cent to $5.1bn.

Egypt’s biggest-ever petrochemicals project, the $10.9bn Tahrir petrochemicals complex (TPC), is one of the projects that has been impacted by fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

In September, MEED revealed that the project was experiencing financing problems due to lower global petrochemical prices and uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

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