The oil and gas unit of Murray & Roberts (M&R) has been awarded a five-year contract to perform maintenance services at a liquid ammonia plant and a technical ammonium nitrate (TAN) plant on the Burrup Peninsula, in Western Australia.

Norway’s Yara International, which owns the facilities, awarded the contract to the Clough AMEC joint venture. Clough forms part of M&R’s oil and gas business platform.

M&R CEO Henry Laas said the contract was an example of the newly restructured group’s repositioning to offer service across the full project life cycle in chosen sectors and regions. M&R is currently focusing on the oil and gas, underground mining and power and water markets in Africa, North America, Australasia and Asia.

M&R recently sold its Southern African infrastructure businesses to a Southern Palace-led consortium for R314-million and transferred its listing from the ‘Construction and Materials’ sector of the JSE to the ‘General Industrials’ sector. From March 20, the company has been trading under the ‘Diversified Industrials’ subsector, having previously traded under the ‘Heavy Construction’ subsector.

“The Clough AMEC’s maintenance contract win is a prime example of what we are working towards achieving across the group,” Laas said in a statement.

Clough CEO Peter Bennett noted that the contract was Clough AMEC’s first onshore petrochemical maintenance contract in Australia and had arisen after a two-years effort to position the group for maintenance activities in the petrochemical sector.

The five-year contract, with an option to extend for a further five years, covers the Yara Pilbara Ammonia Plant, which has the capacity to produce 850 000 t of liquid ammonia as well as the associated TAN plant, which in the final commissioning stages and will have a 330 000 t/y capacity. TAN is the main component in explosives used by the mining, quarrying and construction industries.

Clough AMEC will perform routine maintenance services and shutdowns at the ammonia plant and the TAN plant.