Kuwait chooses Foster Wheeler and Amec for new petrochemical projects

(hydrocarbonprocessing)-- State-run Kuwait National Petroleum Co., or KNPC, has awarded engineering firms Amec and Foster Wheeler consultancy contracts for its new refinery and clean fuel projects, according to the official Kuwait News Agency, or KUNA.

The contracts allow the two companies to prepare the bids and technical specifications for the projects. The Kuwaiti firm has previously said that other tenders for the construction will be issued by year end or early 2013.

The two projects will be implemented simultaneously and are expected to boost the refining capacity of KNPC's parent company, Kuwait Petroleum Corp., to 1.4 million bpd of crude oil and will cost about USD25 billion.

The new refinery to be located in Kuwait's Al Zour region and environmentally-friendly fuel projects will be completed by 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Since its incorporation in 1960, KNPC was engaged in different activities of the oil industry. Kuwait National Petroleum Company was established as a joint venture between the government and the private sector. KNPC became fully government-owned in 1975. The company was also founded to develop the downstream sector in Kuwait.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Shell Global Solutions to develop the basic engineering package for a world-scale mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) facility at the Gulf region (Qatar).
MRC

(apic-online) -- Hengli Petrochemical is likely to restart operations at its No. 1 purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant.

Located at Dalian, Liaoning province in China, the No. 1 PTA plant has a production capacity of 2.2 million mt/year. The plant was taken off-stream for a maintenance turnaround on November 28, 2012.

Hengli Petrochemical which is utilizing PTA technology from Invista, claims that the plant is the world's largest monomer production plant.

The PTA plant was set up in a record time of two years after Hengli Group, Dalian municipal government and Changxing Island CMC signed an investment agreement. It completed all purchases in six months and took just seven months to install the main equipment.

The company is likely to restart operations at the plant in the current week, according to a source in China.

MRC

(plasteurope) -- Argentina’s petrochemicals production capacity is expected to remain flat at 4.316m t/y over the next four years to 2016, says market research company GlobalData (London / UK). The capacity has remained at this level since 2010, when expansions in the vinyls and styrenics segments added 42,000 t in output. The vinyls capacity was raised by 40,000 t/y to 491,000 t/y and the capacity for styrene and its derivatives was raised by 2,000 t/y to 267,000 t/y.

Argentina also has the capacity to produce 2.102m t/y of olefins and derivatives, 838,000 t/y of aromatics and derivatives and 618,000 t/y of methanol and derivatives, GlobalData says.

The main petrochemicals producers are Dow Chemical (Midland, Michigan / USA), Repsol (Madrid / Spain), Petrobras Argentina, Solvay (Brussels / Belgium) and Mexico’s Alfa, which together accounted for more than 80% of Argentina’s petrochemicals capacity in 2011.

Argentina’s main petrochemicals production complex is located in Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires state, where Dow operates a cracker and PE complex. Polyglobe shows that this site alone can turn out more than 1.6m t/y of feedstocks and polymers. Dow revealed plans earlier this month to invest ARS 67m (EUR 10.7m) to upgrade its Bahia Blanca cracker and PE operations. The upgrade, which will not raise capacity, is expected to be completed in Q3 2013. The country’s main vinyls production, which is operated by Solvay, is also located in Bahia Blanca.

Major producers of styrene and its derivatives include Petrobras Argentina, which has plants in Puerto General San Martin in Santa Fe province and in Zarate in Buenos Aires, and BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany), which has a plant in General Lagos in Santa Fe, GlobalData said. German chemical giant can turn out 14,000 t/y of EPS at the site.
MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Reliance Industries has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group with an engineering and procurement assistance services contract for the construction of a mono ethylene glycol (MEG) plant at the Jamnagar refining and petrochemical complex in Gujarat, India.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

"We appreciate Reliance’s confidence in us for this significant portion of its petrochemical expansion project at the Jamnagar complex," said Jacobs vice president Allyn Taylor.

Reliance Industries Limited is the largest petrochemical company in India. The company is engaged in a wide range of activities, ranging from oil and gas production to production of polyester and polymer goods, including the production of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and textiles.
MRC

(bnamericas) -- Braskem-Idesa has awarded Tecnimont, a subsidiary of Italian company Maire Tecnimont, a USD191mn engineering and procurement contract for a 300,000t/y low-density polyethylene (LDPE) unit to be constructed within the Ethylene XXI petrochemicals complex in Mexico's Veracruz state.

The LDPE unit will be built using LyondellBasell's Lupotech T technology.

The engineering and procurement activities are scheduled to be completed within the fourth quarter 2014, Maire Tecnimont said in a statement.

Ethylene XXI will house a 1Mt/y ethane-based ethylene cracker, using Technip proprietary technology, two HDPE plants using Ineos Innovene technology, and the LDPE plant.

The project is scheduled for completion in mid-2015.

Braskem Idesa is a joint venture between Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem (65%) and Mexican group Idesa (35%).

The project will require investment of USD3.2bn.

MRC