Contracts & Projects Tracker: Chemicals

Enihas renamed its Polimeri Europa division Versalis, as part of a major new investment strategy for the chemicals and polymers unit. From 2012 to 2015, Eni will invest €1.6bn - 60% more than previously planned - mainly to develop Italian sites serving its elastomers business, and to facilitate entry into new business areas. (Read more)

Foster Wheeler AG has signed an Asian Enterprise Framework Agreement with Shell Global Solutions International BV for the provision of engineering and project management services for Shell’s downstream projects in Asia. The agreement is for a five-year period, with an option to extend for another five years. Work will be released under individual work orders.

Evonik Industries AG has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a contract to provide basic engineering services for an investment in a grassroots polyamide 12 production facility in Asia. Jacobs has been working with Evonik’s project team in Marl, Germany to develop the conceptual design for the new plant, which is based on Evonik’s existing plants in Germany. Under a separate framework contract signed in 2011, Jacobs is providing engineering services as the owner’s engineer on Evonik’s process industry projects worldwide.

Recent changes in ownership are enabling some long-delayed capital investment projects to begin in the UK petrochemical sector according to Protel, Takeovers such as those at Milford Haven, Pembroke and Stanlow refineries - by Murco, Valero Energy and Essar Energy, respectively - appear to have brought increased stability to the sector. (Read more)

Shell is reviewing the future of its last UK manufacturing site in Stanlow, Cheshire, according to trade union Unite. The move, it said, could mark the end of the group’s manufacturing effort in the UK. (Read more)

Jacobs Engineering Group is to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management services for the upgrade of the olefins 4 plant at SABIC’s petrochemical production complex in Geleen, The Netherlands. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2013 as part of the scheduled plant turnaround. The project involve modifications to the existing olefins 4 naphtha cracker to increase its energy efficiency and ethylene production capacity.

INEOS has engaged KBR to design and construct an ethylene furnace for one of its its US operations. Upon commissioning the unit is expected to provide the highest achievable ethylene yields in the industry. The furnace design will add 465 million pounds per year of furnace production capacity to the INEOS Chocolate Bayou works olefins complex in Alvin, Texas. (More details)

BASF has chosen Fluor Corp. as its engineering partner for chemicals capital projects across North America. The umbrella services agreement covers conceptual and FEED projects, detailed engineering, procurement, project management and construction management services. Fluor, which is already by BASF’s engineering partner in Asia and Europe, has multiple projects active for BASF including the FEED phase for its TDI isocyanates project in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

\Williams Olefins LLC has awarded CB&I a $300m contract for a petrochemicals expansion project in Geismar, Louisiana. The scope of the award includes the license and basic engineering for the ethylene technology, the supply of the cracking furnaces, and the detailed EPC of the expansion project. Plant capacity is expected to be increased from 1.35 to 1.95bn pounds per year.

Foster Wheeler has signed a ‘strategic umbrella agreement’ with Dow Chemical Co. for the provision of project management, consulting, engineering, procurement, construction management, and construction services. The agreement has an initial term of three years and provides support by Foster Wheeler to selected Dow global capital projects across its speciality chemicals, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses.

Cynar plc has awarded Rockwell Automation an $11m contract to design and build a plastics-to-fuel conversion plant in Bristol, UK for SITA UK Ltd - a Cynar customer and partner in the development. Cynar has developed a technology that converts end-of-life plastics into fuel. The contract includes the design and build of process skids, automation architecture, software, power control and engineering/startup services in one fully integrated solution, using the Rockwell’s PlantPAx process automation system. A Rockwell team has worked with Cynar over the past two years developing the engineering, modularisation and process improvements of its conversion plant.

Linde Group is to supply air gases to chemicals producer Dahua Group on Songmu Island, Dalian, China. Investing around Euro70m in the project, Linde will acquire and operate the customer’s two existing air separation units (ASUs) in Dalian. Linde will also build a new ASU on site with a production capacity of 38,000 normal cubic metres of oxygen per hour.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by CJSC Antipinsky Refinery for the engineering and material supply of a new fired heater and air preheating system for the Antipinsky Refinery, Tyumen, Russia. The fired heater will be part of a new crude distillation unit. FW’s work is to be completed by the end of 2012. The deal follows an award by CJSC in 2011 for the technology license and basic design package for FW’s selective yield delayed coking technology, and the basic design package for a vacuum distillation unit.

Solvay has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a $9m contract for a speciality polymers production plant to be built at its industrial site in Changshu, China. Jacobs is the EPCM services contract from its Shanghai operations in China. Solvay is investing $160m in the plant, which will produce its PVDF and FKM fluoropolymers, as well as its VF2 monomer. The plant is due to become operational in Q1/14.

Fluor Corp. has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by Joule to design and build a renewable fuel production facility in New Mexico. The facility is intended to test and scale up a process for the commercial production of liquid fuels via Joule’s technology, which uses sunlight to convert industrial waste carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons, ethanol or chemical products.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Petrochemical Co. (QAPCO) are to develop a new petrochemical complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The project includes a world-scale steam cracker, with the feedstock coming from natural gas plants in Ras Laffan. Due for completion in 2018, it will produce 1,400ktpa of ethylene, 850ktpa of HDPE, 430ktpa of LLDPE, 760ktpa of polypropylene, 83ktpa of butadiene. QP has an 80% equity interest in the project, QAPCO 20%. The complex will help Qatar to exploit its abundant natural gas resources.

DSM Engineering Plastics has moved its global HQ to Singapore. The company has development, sales and manufacturing facilities located in The Netherlands, the US, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Belgium and Russia. President Roelof Westerbeek said the move “will help DSM Engineering Plastics to quicker anticipate the needs of our customers, both regionally and globally. In addition, it underlines the high importance that DSM puts on high growth economies as one of the key growth drivers.”

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is executing four contracts from Arkema France for basic engineering services to support the provision of Arkema’s proprietary suspension and emulsion technology to four of its clients in China. Arkema’s technology is being used in four new PVC production plants in Hefei, Golmud, Etuoke Banner and Wu Lan Cha Bu. Jacobs’ PVC technology experts in its Dutch office in Leiden, and Arkema’s PVC technology team based in Lyon, France are currently performing the basic engineering work.

Fluor Corp. has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by Joule Unlimited Inc., to design and build a biofuels demo facility in New Mexico. The facility is intended to scale up a pilot process currently producing liquid fuels via Joule’s novel technology, which uses sunlight to convert proprietary organisms and carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons and ethanol.

Saudi Aramco and Dow Europe have awarded Foster Wheeler an engineering, procurement and construction management contract for a propylene oxide unit at Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. This unit will be part of a world-scale, fully integrated chemicals complex, which will be constructed, owned and operated by Sadara Chemical Co. - a JV between Saudi Aramco and Dow. This contract is an extension to a FEED contract awarded to Foster Wheeler in 2008. The unit is expected to be completed during Q1/15.

Methanex Corp., a major global supplier of methanol, has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a contract to provide engineering services for a potential methanol production facility in Louisiana. The plant would be relocated from Chile to Louisiana and could be operational in H2/14. Jacobs is currently executing site-specific engineering for the 225-acre location in Geismar, La. from its offices in Baton Rouge, La.; Santiago, Chile; and Marble Arch, London, UK.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a feasibility study by Albanian Refining & Marketing of Oil sh.a. (ARMO) relating to two refineries in Albania. ARMO intends to modernise the existing refineries at Ballsh and Fier to restore production to the original design capacity and produce transportation fuels in line with current EU regulations. The study is expected to be completed by mid-2012.

BASF is investing about Euro1bn to build a single-train 300ktpa TDI (toluene diisocyanate) plant and expand additional plants for its precursors at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. These include a new hydrogen chloride recycling plant as well as the expansion of plants for nitric acid, chlorine and synthesis gas. It also plans to expand the aromatics complex at the site for the supply of toluene. Production will start Q4/14. BASF plans to shut its 80ktpa TDI plant in Schwarzheide, Germany, when the new plant goes on stream.

Grimley Smith Associates, part of Fabricom GDF SUEZ (UK), is to design a bio-polymer demonstration facility that Plaxica plans to build at Wilton International on Teesside. Plaxica is a technology and licensing company focused on the production of biopolymers and chemicals from renewable resources, such as sugarcane, cereals and cellulose. The proposed demo plant will use energy efficient processes to produce second generation polylactic acid (PLA) based materials.

SABIC and Sinopec have confirmed a joint plan to build the new 260ktpa polycarbonate production complex at the Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co. (SSTPC) in Tianjin, China. When the plant is fully operational in 2015, SABIC will become one of the world’s largest producers of polycarbonate. The co-operation deal between he companies allows SABIC to supply polycarbonate as feedstock to the company’s other plants in China and the Pacific region.

Bayer MaterialScience has begun construction of a Euro35m, multipurpose production plant for polyurethane coating raw materials at Chempark Leverkusen, Germany. The products hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) are used primarily for automotive and industrial coatings. The plant is due on stream in Q3/13.

Dow Corning has selected Siemens Industry Inc. as its strategic process automation partner. A global supply contract will feature Siemens Simatic PCS 7 as the strategic platform for Dow Corning’s batch, continuous and discrete process automation solutions. Siemens process control system manages the automation of all ancillary, upstream and downstream processes, while providing the mechanism to improve process efficiency resulting in improved production and reductions in the total cost of ownership.

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