Algeria's state energy company Sonatrach on Sunday awarded the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC) a 380-million-euro ($420-million) contract to renovate its Algiers refinery.

CPECC, which is affiliated to the China National Petroleum Corporation, will rehabilitate the refinery after Sonatrach severed an initial deal it had struck with French engineering firm Technip.

The project is aimed at building new units to bring the refinery -- built in 1964 -- up to European standards and increase its current annual output of 2.7 million tonnes of refined petrol by 35 percent.

In 2010, Sonatrach awarded a contract then worth 880 million euros to Technip, but five years later the two sides parted ways over procedural differences.

At the time Algerian media said that after signing the contract Technip realised that there was more work needed to be done at the refinery than modernisation.

abh/ao/hkb/srm

SINOPEC - CHINA PETROLEUM & CHEMICAL CORPORATION

TECHNIP