Construction consulting firm Hill International’s subsidiary has won a key Kuwait refinery contract.

The joint venture of Hill and System Development & Project Management (SDPM) has received a contract from Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) to provide consulting services during the construction of a new refinery located in the Al-Zour region of Southern Kuwait and during the Clean Fuels Program of existing refineries located at Mina Al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah, the company said in a statement.

The five-year contract has an estimated value to Hill exclusive of its joint venture partner of approximately $20 million, it added.

The new refinery, which is expected to cost approximately $15 billion, will be one of the largest in the world with a refining capacity of 615,000 barrels of oil per day.

Construction is expected to begin in 2008 and be completed by 2013. The upgrade of the existing refineries in connection with the Clean Fuels Programme is expected to cost approximately $7 billion.

Services to be provided by Hill/SDPM under the contract include on-call consulting services, contract and commercial management, interface management, quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC), and claims avoidance and management services. Hill is a 65 per cent partner in the joint venture and SDPM is a 35 per cent partner.

“The new refinery project at Al-Zour and the Clean Fuels Programme for the existing refineries are large, complex projects whose success is vitally important to the Kuwaiti petroleum industry," said Raouf S Ghali, President of Hill's Project Management Group (International).

"We are honoured to be participating in such an important program where our expertise can add significant value to the construction process and where we can provide KNPC with significant structured training opportunities," added Bill Kennedy, Vice President and Executive Director with Hill's Construction Claims Group and Project Director of the KNPC assignment.

Hill International, with 1,500 employees in 70 offices worldwide, provides program management, project management, construction management, and construction claims services.

Engineering News-Record magazine recently ranked Hill as the 10th largest construction management firm in the United States. – TradeArabia News Service