New York-listed Fluor has started work on its newly secured engineering, procurement and construction management services contract for Sasol Technology, in Secunda, the company announced on Tuesday.

The engineering and construction company was appointed to replace 24 duplex stainless steel separator tanks, each weighing between 80 t and 100 t, at Sasol Technology, as part of its tar separator replacement project.

With the engineering under way, Fluor is expected to start construction during the fourth quarter of this year and complete it by mid-2015.

Fluor aimed to use shifts to ensure construction continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to shorten the construction timeline and enable ongoing production while the project was under way.

The company declined to disclose the value of the contract.

Fluor energy and chemicals group president Peter Oosterveer explained that the tar separators feed all four phases of Sasol’s Secunda complex and that the gas liquor separation units were used to separate various gaseous, liquid and solid components from the gas liquor streams that originate in the gasification, gas cooling, rectisol and phenosolvan units.