Pemex lets contract for Tula refinery upgrade

Nov. 18, 2015
Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), through its newly created processing subsidiary Pemex Transformacion Industrial (formerly Pemex Refinacion), has let a contract to Fluor Corp. unit ICA Fluor’s industrial engineering-construction joint venture with Empresas ICA SAB de CV to provide additional services related to the modernization and expansion of the 315,000-b/d Miguel Hidalgo refinery in Tula, Hidalgo state.

Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), through its newly created processing subsidiary Pemex Transformacion Industrial (formerly Pemex Refinacion), has let a contract to Fluor Corp. unit ICA Fluor’s industrial engineering-construction joint venture with Empresas ICA SAB de CV to provide additional services related to the modernization and expansion of the 315,000-b/d Miguel Hidalgo refinery in Tula, Hidalgo state.

Valued at a total of $1.1 billion, the contract includes delivery of detailed engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for utilities and off sites associated with the refinery’s upgrade, which, once completed, will increase its processing capacity to 340,000 b/d, Fluor said.

Fluor will book its $550-million share of the EPC contract during fourth-quarter 2015, the company said.

This latest contract follows Pemex’s previous award to ICA Fluor of a $95-million contract to develop the first phase of the Miguel Hidalgo refinery’s $3.5-billion reconfiguration project, including basic and detailed engineering for the process plants, auxiliary services, and integration required for the planned overhaul, which aims to boost the plant’s yield of higher value distillates through reprocessing of such products as gas oil (diesel) (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2013).

Mechanical completion of the refinery’s modernization is scheduled for second-quarter 2018, Fluor said.

Alongside its work on the refinery reconfiguration project, ICA Fluor also is delivering EPC services for construction of an 86,000-b/d delayed coker at Miguel Hidalgo (OGJ Online, Dec. 4, 2014).

These contracts come in addition to a series of contracts Pemex has let as part of the diesel phase of its ongoing national fuel quality project, which involves a $2.8-billion investment into increasing ultralow-sulfur diesel production at five of Mexico’s refineries, including the Tula plant (OGJ Online, Sept. 15, 2014).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].