British multinational consultancy, engineering and project management company Amec Foster Wheeler in January entered into a three-year project management contract with Chinese coal mining company Shenhua Ningxia Coal Group.

In terms of the contract, Amec Foster Wheeler will be part of an integrated project management team responsible for the management of the engineering, commercial, procurement, health and safety, quality and project controls activities at Shenhua’s coal-chemical by-product deep processing complex utilisation project in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, of north-west China.

The value of the multimillion-dollar contract has not yet been announced, says Amec Foster Wheeler north-east Asia regional director Mike Collins.

The new plant is designed to produce a range of different coal-chemical-products, polyethylene, polypropylene, synthetic ammonia and aromatic hydrocarbons. It will include a 1.4-million-ton-a-year cracking factory, and is expected to start operation by the middle of 2017, explains Collins.

“This is a significant repeat contract for a major long-term customer in the strategically important chemicals sector. We will continue to build on our eight-year relationship and use our renowned project management capability to help to deliver the long-term objectives for the project, safely and sustainably.”

He notes that Amec Foster Wheeler has successfully delivered three project management contracts and a basic engineering contract for Shenhua Ningxia Coal Group since 2006.

Amec Foster Wheeler designs, delivers and maintains strategic and complex assets for its customers across the global energy and related sectors.

With proforma 2013 annualised scope revenues of £5.5-billion and over 40 000 employees in more than 50 countries, the company operates across the whole of the global oil and gas industry – from production through to refining, processing and distribution of derivative products in the mining, clean energy, power generation, pharmaceuticals, environment and infrastructure markets, says Collins.

He adds that Amec Foster Wheeler has more than 80 years’ experience of working in China, dating back to the 1930s when it built town gas plants for cities, including Shanghai.

“Over the past fifteen years, Amec Foster Wheeler in China has provided project management; engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) management and EPC services to many projects across China and Asia in the petrochemical, power, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and clean energy sectors.”