Shafaq News/ Iraq awarded a long-awaited contract to build a new 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) integrated refining and petrochemicals complex on the southern Al-Faw peninsula to Chinese state-owned engineering company CNCEC. 

Al-Faw is already one of Iraq's most important oil storage hubs and is used as a buffer for crude before it is pumped to offshore terminals for export. The oil ministry, which is using a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) contract model for the refinery, relaunched the project last year, having failed to move it forward with previous investors. The ministry signed a contract with Chinese firms PowerChina and Norinco International to build the refinery in 2018.

The Minister of Oil, Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail, said in a press conference on the sidelines of the signing, "the contract was signed by the South Refineries Company on behalf of the Ministry and HUALU Engineering and Technology Co, the subsidiary of CNCEC."

The project, which includes a 300,000 bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex, is valued at seven billion dollars. "The value is subject to rising in the second phase," Minister Ismail said. 

"The project will transform Iraq into a country suitable for investment in the field of refining and will provide oil derivatives with the highest international standards," he added. 

HUALU representative, Ahmed Abdul-Latif, said that the project will be the largest of its kind thanks to the technology the company will dedicate to its implementation. 

"In the first stage, a refinery with a capacity od 300,000 bpd at a value of seven billion dollars will be built. In the second, we will build a petrochemical complex that produces three million tons annually at an investment value of 12 billion dollars."