A project that began at Valient Petroleum, Inc. in Refugio two years ago was completed last week. The construction was of the largest contract the local company has undertaken, according to the engineers.

After red-tape was completed last week to ship the wide load to the port in Ingleside, the crude oil metering system will be shipped to France before making its way to Angola.

The metering system, valued at $1.8 million, will be placed on a floating production storage and off-loading vessel that will be used offshore in Angola.

From its base on up, the system was fabricated at the local Valient yard.

“Valient has a great facility in Refugio with adequate space for this and other large projects,” said Michael McCormick, project manager for FMC Technologies.

At least two foreign companies contracted the work in the U.S., including South Korea’s Daewoo and France’s TOTAL to FMC Technologies which sub-contracted the work to Valient.

Mechanical Engineer Chandler Mouli designed the unit for FMC.

Mouli said he was happy with the unit that was completed last week.

Two cranes were needed to hoist the system onto a truck that will haul it to Ingleside to be shipped out.

John Muguerza, shop supervisor, who has been with Valient since the Refugio yard opened, said it was the biggest project they’ve worked on to date.

More large projects are expected to be constructed at the plant in Refugio in the future.