Amec Foster Bags FEED Contract for Total's Donges Refinery

Amec Foster Wheeler has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract by Total Raffinage France, a subsidiary of Total SA.

Total has stated that the Donges refinery currently lacks desulphurisation capacity, and a significant proportion of its fuels are therefore exported because they no longer meet fuel quality European Union specifications.

The project, comprising a new vacuum gas oil hydrotreater unit and sour water stripping unit as well as modification of existing units and new interconnections, is part of the investment planned by Total to upgrade its Donges refinery, improving its performance.

Amec Foster Wheeler will support the modernisation of Total Raffinage’s Donges refinery in Western France by combining its world-class refinery FEED expertise, integrated engineering systems capabilities and its innovative asset information hub (AIH) with the visualisation and digital asset virtual plant technology.

The AIH provides a digital representation of the physical plant. Collating documents, data, and models of the plant, the AIH is a powerful information management system with which to control and review aspects of the plant throughout its life in a secure environment.

Combined with virtual plant technology, provided by Aveva, it allows a designer to move around an asset, zoom in, open documents and review data that is hosted in the AIH. Customers benefit by having global access to data and assured information. All this results in improved efficiency, predictable project delivery and safety.

Aveva is the world’s leading engineering, design and information management software providers to the process, plant and marine industries.

Amec Foster Wheeler is currently the only company licenced by Aveva to provide this hosting service.

As a cutting edge, digital technology designed to improve project delivery, AIH forms a core part of Amec Foster Wheeler’s strategy to grow its refining business and deliver efficient and predictable project outcomes.

“This is a strategically important project for Total designed to increase the performance of the Donges refinery, which Amec Foster Wheeler knows well from past successful projects. We will combine innovative Virtual Plant technology and our unique Asset Information Hub, together with our extensive refinery clean fuels expertise, to deliver this important project for Total,” said Marco Moresco, president, downstream capital projects, EMEA, Amec Foster Wheeler.