"Kazakhoil", Atyrau refinery and Japanese Marubeni indend to sign contract on plant reconstructino late March 2000

/IRBIS, Jan.6, 00/ - PRIME-TASS informs, with the reference to the source close to NOC "Kazakhoil", National oil company "Kazakhoil", Atyrau oil refinery /ANPZ/ and Japanese Marubeni plan to sign a framework contract late March 2000 to reconstruct ANPZ. The contract should be signed within specified time limits in case technical documentation will be ready by the end of March, which will a starting point of the contract /stage Pre-FEED/. The project of the contract is to be developed by Japanese partners by late February. "Kazakhoil" and ANPZ are to provide Marubeni with technical characteristics and equipment of the plant by January 15, and sample of oil from Mangyshlak and Martyshinkskii deposits by January 20. Engineering, supply and construction contract for Atyrau refinery includes works on oil fractionating equipment, hydropurification, hydropurification of diesel fuel, amine cleaning, isomerization and extraction of sulfur. In case of insufficiency of funds for the contract in 2000, the project is to be carried out in two stages, as it was proposed by Marubeni. First of all, /basic engineering/ should be performed, including engineering, supply and construction for the equipment of oil fractionating with the capacity of 32 th. barrels per day and water purification equipment for 340 th. cubic meters an hour by September-October 2000. As PRIME-TASS informed earlier, project for reconstruction of Atyrau refinery for 412 mln dollars /30% more or less/ means modernization of processing capacities of 4.3 mln tons of oil a year.