12-06-01 Foster Wheeler South Africa, a unit of Foster Wheeler, agreed to provide engineering and construction services to Mossgas. The Foster Wheeler unit will provide its services for Mossgas' construction of a new $ 16.8 mm plant.
The plant, which will be built on Mossgas' existing premises at Mossel Bay, will produce 70,000 tons of environmentally friendly low aromatic diesel and kerosene per annum for the export market. The project will consist of a low aromatic distillate production facility and new tanks at the Mossgas refinery as well as at Mossgas' Voorbaai tank farm. A 2 km sub sea pipeline from the tank farm will transport products to the company's existing conventional buoy mooring for loading into tank ships.

Foster Wheeler's scope of work covers the detailed engineering and design, based on the licensor package provided by the Institut Francais du Petrole for the low aromatics distillate plant, and a basic engineering package provided by Mossgas for the storage tanks and sub-sea pipeline. Foster Wheeler will be responsible for the procurement of all equipment and materials associated with the new plant, and also for overall management of the project. The work will be executed in Foster Wheeler South Africa's offices in Midrand.
The low aromatic products are expected to command substantial premiums over the local fuel price of diesel and kerosene. The American and European markets for drilling fluids, solvents, specialty chemicals and indoor heating and lighting will be targeted initially.
Mark Meyer, Managing Director of Foster Wheeler South Africa, said: "This contract further consolidates Foster Wheeler's ability in EPC management services. We are very pleased to be working with Mossgas on such a beneficial project, which is expected to earn South Africa foreign exchange up to $ 30 mm per year."
Work on the project, which is scheduled to go into production in October 2002, has already commenced.

Foster Wheeler is a global company offering, through its subsidiaries, abroad range of design, engineering, construction, manufacturing, project development and management, research, plant operations and environmental services. The corporation's operational headquarters are in Clinton, New Jersey.

Mossgas produces synthetic motor fuels and associated products from offshore natural gas found approximately 85 km -- 120 km south/south-west of Mossel Bay. Its motor fuels are supplied to the local oil companies, which market the products under their own brand names in large parts of the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape provinces.
The company saves the country more than R 2 bn a year in foreign exchange through the import replacement of the equivalent of 45,000 bpd of crude oil. It produces 7 % of the country's liquid fuel needs. Mossgas has been in full production since January 1993 and has to date produced more than 12,2 bn litres (76,4 mm barrels) of finished products.