A GLOBAL engineering and construction firm has won a contract to design a pilot plant to extract copper in Bulgaria.

Aker Kvaerner will use environmentally-friendly technology to remove the remaining metal from tailings - ore which has had copper stripped from it.

MBS, a research, design and build company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, has the technology to remove most of the metal from the ore but needed Aker Kvaerner to provide the technology to extract the rest.

The project has environmental benefits because copper traces in tailings can create acid water.

The substances removed also have an economic benefit as they can be sold.

Aker Kvaerner's Teesside operations, AK Engineering Services, in Stockton, will produce the technology for the pilot scheme and in the long-term hope to design a large-scale extraction plant for MBS.

Design work on the pilot will begin immediately and is scheduled to take about six months.

The contract is a bonus as it comes soon after a deal to modify the Punta Gorda Nickel Plant in Cuba.

The contract news is a shot in the arm for the Norwegian firm, which axed 70 jobs after the group amalgamated three businesses under the single banner AK Engineering Services.

The Aker Kvaerner Group is a leading global provider of engineering and construction services, technology products and integrated solutions.

It has annual revenues of approximately £3.75bn and employs about 35,000 people in more than 30 countries.