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Amec has won contracts worth up to £80m from the National Grid to design and deliver a new gas compression station and upgrade two others.

Under the deals, Amec will design and deliver a new gas compression station in South Wales and upgrade two stations in central England. The contracts are the latest in series of awards to Amec by National Grid covering both gas and electricity infrastructure.

The new station at Felindre, near Swansea, is part of the expansion of the national gas transmission system, enabling gas from a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) reception terminal currently under construction in Milford Haven to be distributed across the UK.

The existing stations for upgrade are situated in Wormington in Gloucestershire and Churchover in Warwickshire. AMEC is already carrying out the front-end engineering design for all three facilities. On successful completion of the engineering design phase AMEC will, subject to contract, undertake detailed design, procurement, construction, pre-commissioning and commissioning for each station.

Design of the Wormington and Churchover facilities is scheduled for completion in February 2006 and the Felindre facilty in May 2006. Wormington gas compressor station modifications are scheduled to be fully operational by October 2007, with the remaining two stations online and commissioned during 2008.

Steve Lee, MD of Amec’s industrial business said: "As the UK comes closer to becoming a net importer of gas, one of the major challenges facing the energy sector is to ensure reliability of supply to industry and domestic customers and we are pleased to be supporting long-term customer National Grid in rising to that challenge".

"This vital work builds on our ten years experience of gas compressor stations across the UK, which, together with our projects in gas storage and for National Grid both in gas distribution and electricity transmission, make us one of the UK's leading provider of infrastructure services."