Engineering firm KBR Inc. announced two project awards in late February.

In the first, KBR won a contract from ExxonMobil to provide detailed engineering, procurement and construction services for the offsites and interconnecting units as part of the recently announced crude expansion project in Beaumont, Texas.

In January, the oil major said it had started work at the refinery on projects to increase the facility's crude refining capacity by more than 65%, or 250,000 barrels per day.

In the second contract award, KBR won a pre-Front End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) contract from Mexico Pacific Limited (MPL) for a mid-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction project in Puerto Libertad on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Financial details were not disclosed.

Based at Puerto Libertad in the state of Sonora, Mexico, the proposed LNG export site features a deepwater port and is linked to the U.S. shale gas grid by multiple natural gas pipelines. The developer said it is permitted for up to 12 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG and targets the initial construction of 2 to 4 MTPA using modular LNG technology. MPL is a joint venture of DKRW Energy Sonora Holdings and AECOM Capital Private Infrastructure.

Under terms of the contract, KBR will provide a Pre-FEED and cost estimate for the project. The work will be done using ConocoPhillips' Optimized Cascade technology. The contract is part of a broader competitive process with FEED expected to start mid-2019.