Kuwait’s Kipic has achieved the first start-up of units at the delayed 615,000 b/d Al-Zour refinery. US contractor Fluor announced on 9 September that its EPC joint venture with Korea’s Daewoo E&C and Hyundai Heavy Industries has started up two boilers and generated steam in the utilities unit. Fluor’s energy and chemicals president Mark Field says this “marks the completion of several critical utility systems” in readiness for start-up of the refinery.
Al-Zour was intended to start up by the end of 2019, but it now appears completion of some of its units will slip into 2020-21. China’s Sinopec Luoyang reached mechanical completion in December 2019 of “the central unit” of the refinery, presumably the crude distillation unit (MEES, 20 December 2019). (CONTINUED - 155 WORDS)