Essar's Italian venture bags $1.5-b order.

Essar Projects recently said its joint venture with Italy�s Saipem S.p.A won a $1.57 billion order from Kuwait National Petroleum Company for setting up a part of the Al-Zour Refinery Project. This is Essar�s biggest third-party order won in the region. The project at Al Zour is Kuwait's biggest development project with a crude processing capacity of 615,000 barrels per day (bpd). The Kuwaiti company has so far awarded four contracts for the refinery�s construction, worth over $13.2 billion to different International bidders. The project is expected to be completed by 2019. Essar Projects' Managing Director & CEO Shiba Panda said, "The project marks Essar's entry into the Kuwait project market with the biggest EPC contract by an external client." With this order, Essar Project�s order book has reached $2.8 billion, with projects being executed in nine countries