A consortium of Chinese companies has reached an advanced stage in the execution of a 300,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery at Iraq’s Faw Port, an official said on Wednesday.

Work is also under way to build one of the world’s largest seawater desalination plants at the Port in South Iraq with an output capacity of one million cubic metres per day, said Farhan Al-Fartousi, Director of the General Company for Ports in Iraq.

“The oil refinery project has reached an advanced stage....there has been a meeting with the Chinese consortium to push ahead with this project and the desalination facility,” Fartousi told the Iraqi News Agency.

He did not name the consortium but a few years ago Iraq awarded the refinery project, which includes a petrochemical plant, to PowerChina and Norinco International.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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