A Japanese consortium of JGC Corp and Chiyoda Corp has been awarded a $879 million contract to build a grassroots refinery at Sohar in Oman.

The three-year contract involves the construction of a grassroots refinery with a capacity of 125,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The main units will be a 75,000 (bpd) residue fluid catalytic cracker, licensed by the US' UOP; an alkylation unit, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) unit, light gasoline and heavy gasoline sweetening units; a sour water stripping unit, and sulphur recovery and propylene unit.

The refinery will be financed by a debt/equity package. The front-end engineering and design package was prepared by JGC; the project manager is ABB Lummus Global.

The refinery will produce unleaded gasoline, low sulphur gas oil, and heavy fuel oil and propylene. The propylene will be used as feedstock for a 340,000-tonne-per-year polypropylene plant that will be built next to the main complex by a joint venture of ABB Lummus and LG.