Italy’s Cannon Artes wins $31m Egyptian desalination project
Cannon Artes, the global engineering and construction company, has announced that it has secured a turnkey contract worth US$31 million from the Suez Oil Processing Company (SOPC) to build an integrated desalination and demineralisation plant as part of a modernisation project for SOPC’s Suez refinery.
In a statement, Cannon Artes said that it will design, engineer, manufacture, deliver, commission, and start an integrated water treatment plant for the refinery. The contract is one of the biggest ever performed by the entire Cannon Group, it added.
The project is expected to be delivered by Q4 2024.
The appointment followed on from a 2021 international tender launched by SOPC for a massive desalination and demineralisation plant. Only two companies qualified for the commercial phase after an extremely stringent technical screening, and Cannon Artes emerged as the winner for the tender for the supply of the plant.
Cannon Artes emerged as the winner for the tender for the supply of the plant with a value in excess of US$31 million, it continued, pointing out that the plant will be fed with water from the Red Sea.
This water will then be made suitable for various purposes within the refinery, such as using high-purity demineralised seawater to feed high-pressure steam boilers and using low-salinity water as make-up for cooling towers.
Unique Engineering Challenges
“We are excited to use our know-how, expertise, and Italian technology to realise this milestone project for Suez Oil Processing Company,” said Pasquale Punzo, CEO at Cannon Artes.
“The size of this project provides unique engineering challenges that our team is eager to tackle,” he asserted, adding that with an incoming capacity of nearly 30,000 cubic metres per day, and an overall footprint in excess of a football field, the plant will rely on Cannon Artes’ capabilities and experience in both desalination plants and customised solutions for refineries.
Established in 1921, the SOPC refinery, located at the entrance of the Suez Canal on the Red Sea, has a capacity of 68,000 barrels of oil per day. In a bid to boost sustainability through reduced environmental impact and energy efficiency, SOPC secured a €200 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).