AK Engineering Services has won a £1.5m contract to carry out essential maintenance work on a North-East oil refinery.
Petroplus Refining Tees-side, at the former ICI North-Tees site, will carry out its biennial production shutdown this summer to ensure its systems are properly maintained.
AKES, part of the Aker Kvaerner Group, will work for about three to four weeks on the contract.
The Petroplus plant plays an important role in the region, producing a number of products including much of the diesel sold at petrol stations around the North-East.
The company has also made strides in producing one of the green fuels of the future.
Its Bio-Plus biodiesel has seen a rapid growth in demand since a £250,000 investment in April last year.
It can produce 15 to 20,000 tonnes a month of Bio-Plus - a 95/5 per cent blend of the company's ultra-low sulphur diesel with oils from a variety of renewable sources.
The result is a fuel that reduces emissions of environmentally damaging exhaust gases. Petroplus has about 60 per cent of the UK biodiesel market share.
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