Contracts awarded for aluminium complex

Engineering firm Fluor Corporation won a series of contracts from a joint venture （JV） comprising Saudi Arabian mining firm Ma’aden and aluminium smelter Alcoa to provide programme management consultancy （PMC） and engineering, procurement and construction management （EPCM） services.

The projects are related to the development of the integrated Ras Az’Zawr aluminium complex. The super project is worth about $10,8-billion and will include a bauxite mine, an alumina refinery, an aluminium smelter and a rolling mill.

Fluor reported booking about $3-billion in the second quarter of 2010, covering the scope of work for four separate aspects for the Ras Az’Zawr complex.

Once completed, the super project will include a bauxite mine with a yearly capacity of four-million tons at Al Ba’itha, a 1,8-million-ton-a-year refinery, a 740 000-ton-a-year smelter, and a rolling mill with a capacity of up to about 460 000 tons a year.

Fluor’s scopes of work includes providing overall PMC services for the development of the entire Ras Az’Zawr aluminium complex, providing EPCM services in a 50:50 JV with Australian project house WorleyParsons, for the mine and alumina refinery, with an expected delivery date in the fourth quarter of 2013, and providing standalone EPCM services for the site’s rolling mill, also expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2013.

Fluor reports that it will also provide standalone EPCM services for the Ras Az’Zawr site’s integrated infrastructure.

“The mining and metals sector continues to be a highlight for Fluor and the start of this significant project, in a key region of the world, is another sign of the strengthening global economic recovery,” says Fluor Corporation COO David Seaton.

“We are extremely proud of our team for having been awarded this prestigious project. The Ma’aden-Alcoa JV has expressed great confidence in our team, by the size and scope of these awards, and we look forward to helping the companies implement their vision to realise one of the world’s largest, vertically integrated metals projects,” Fluor Industrial business group president Dwayne Wilson says.