Bahrain’s base oil plant joint venture sees start-up in 2011

The engineering and procurement phase of the new US$430 million joint venture lube base oil manufacturing plant in Bahrain is nearly over, and construction at present is in full swing. Construction of the plant that has a name plate capacity of 420,000 metric tons of base oil per year is nearly 40% complete and the plant is expected to be ready for start up in June 2011, says Essa Al Ansari, general manager, Bapco, which will be operating and maintaining the plant on behalf of the JV between Oil and Gas Holding Co. (a subsidiary of Nogaholding) Bahrain and Neste Oil of Finland. Neste Oil will market the products while the newly established Bahrain Lube Base Oil Co. (BLBOC) will manage and operate the joint venture. (February 22, 2010)