India's HPCL Awards Project Management Contract for Diesel Hydrotreater to Jacobs Engineering

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (BSE:500104) (HPCL) (Mumbai), an integrated oil refining and marketing firm, awarded a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Pasadena, California) for providing project management consultancy services for setting up a diesel hydrotreating (DHT) unit at HPCL's refinery in Mumbai. While the value of the contract has not yet been officially disclosed, the total cost of the project is estimated to be $650 million.

The project is part of HPCL's initiatives to equip its refineries in Mumbai and Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, with DHT facilities to adhere to the Auto Fuel Policy Euro-IV norms that will be enforced in all metropolitan regions by 2010. The facilities, each with a capacity of 2.2 million tons per year, will enable the production of gasoline and diesel according to Euro-IV specifications. Under the contract, JEC will undertake front-end engineering and design (FEED) activities and supervise the lump-sum turnkey contracting for installing the DHT facility at HPCL's refinery in Mumbai.

The DHT units will reduce the sulfur content of the diesel to low levels of less than 500 parts per million (ppm), or ultra-low levels of less than 10 ppm. It also enables cetane uplift and removal of polyaromatic hydrocarbons from diesel.

HPCL's refinery in Mumbai is a lube-based refinery with a production capacity of 5.5 million tons per year. The firm's refinery in Vishakhapatnam has a capacity of 7.5 million tons per year. Engineers India Limited (BSE:532178) (New Delhi) conducted configuration studies for setting up DHT units at both refineries.

In December 2007, HPCL awarded a $160 million contract to Jacobs Engineering India Private Limited (Mumbai), a subsidiary of JEC, for project management consultancy services for expansion of the lube base oil stock unit at the Mumbai refinery to 200,000 tons per year. Late last year, Jacobs Engineering India invited bids on behalf of HPCL for setting up a hydrogen generation unit at the Mumbai refinery. The deadline for submission of bids was March 12, 2009.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.