BASF and FINA plan steam cracker

BASF and FINA plan steam cracker

Pump Industry Analyst AMOCO AND MITSUI OPEN LATEST CHEMICAL FACILITY IN ASIA L) © [-., ...

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Pump Industry Analyst

AMOCO

AND MITSUI

OPEN LATEST CHEMICAL FACILITY IN ASIA

L)

© [-.,

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Amoco Corporation and Japan's Mitsui have dedicated the newest chemical facility in Southeast Asia, a 350 000 metric tons per year plant to produce purified terephthalic acid (PTA), the preferred raw material for the manufacture of polyester. The plant is a joint venture between Amoco, Mitsui Petrochemical Industries Ltd and Mitsui & Co Ltd and is the largest PTA facility built to date in Indonesia. Production from the plant will serve the growing Indonesian polyester industry. Capital costs of the project were not disclosed. The new facility, brought on stream two years after the formation of the company, PT Amoco Mitsui PTA Indonesia, uses Amoco's proprietary PTA technology, including further technical refinements by Mitsui.

October 1997

Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc. The new plant will use ethylene production technology developed by ABB Lummus Global and will have an output of 800 000 metric tons per year, doubling the capacity of the existing facilities. The additional ethylene output will be used to increase production of derivative products such as polyethylene and ethylene glycol. Engineering for the new plant has started and construction work is scheduled to begin later this year, with completion planned for late 1999. ABB will provide the process technology and licences, basic and detailed engineering, supply of all equipment and material, and will be responsible for the construction and commissioning of the plant. BASF AND FINA PLAN STEAM CRACKER BASF

Corporation

of

Mount Olive, New Jersey and FINA Inc of Dallas, Texas are to establish a 60/40 joint venture to build

ABB TO BUILD US$500 MILLION ETHYLENE

PLANT

IN SAUDI ARABIA ABB, the international engineering company, has been awarded a contract to build a new ethylene production plant as part of a major expansion of the Yanpet Petrochemical Complex, located in Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The value of the lump sum turnkey contract is approximately US$500 million. It was placed by Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Company, which is a joint venture between Saudi

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a world-scale liquids steam cracker. The unit will have a nameplate capacity of 1.8 billion pounds of ethylene and 1.95 billion pounds of propylene. Total investment will be approximately US$800 million. The cracker, which is scheduled for start-up in the fourth quarter of 2000, will use integrated metathesis technology for enhanced propylene production. The facility will be located at FINA's refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, and be operated by BASF Corporation. The investment is subject to final board approvals of both corn-

panics, which is expected in early 1998. FOSTER WHEELER, BOC IN SOUTH AMERICAN START-UP Venezuelan government officials, representatives of the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), and senior executives of Foster Wheeler Power Systems Inc and BOC Gases have marked the start-up of the largest hydrogen plant in South America. Built, owned and operated by a joint venture between Foster Wheeler Power Systems and BOC Gases, the US$50 million plant, which was designed and constructed by Foster Wheeler USA Corp, is capable of supplying up to 50 million cubic feet per day of hydrogen to the PDVSA refining centre in Amuay, Venezuela. Located on the Paraguana Peninsula in northwest Venezuela, the Amuay refinery is one of the world's largest and is capable of processing up to 630 000 barrels per day of crude oil. Operating since 1950, the refinery has undergone several major upgrades to keep pace with advances in technology. PHILLIPS' SINGAPORE VENTURE

COMES

ONSTREAM Phillips Petroleum Company's new 440 million pounds per year high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant in Singapore has been completed and is in production. The joint-venture facility more than doubles the capacity of an existing plant, bring-

ing total capacity to 870 million pounds per year. According to Jack Howe, senior vice president of chemicals and plastics, the expansion will help Phillips supply growing polyethylene markets in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Initial production from the first train of the new plant began in midAugust, with startup of the second train in mid-September. Phillips Petroleum Singapore Chemicals (Private) Limited (PPSC), a wholly owned Phillips subsidiary, has a 50 per cent interest in the new plant. CHEVRON CHEMICAL

PLANS

NAO PLANT Chevron Chemical Co is to conduct front-end engineering for a world-scale normal alpha olefin (NAO) plant to be located at one of the company's two Gulf Coast sites. Using Chevron's proprietary technology, the plant will produce annually 750 million pounds of alpha olefins and is expandable to one billion pounds. It is scheduled to begin production in mid-2000. The company selected Bechtel to perform engineering services. The project supports Chevron's plans to develop a complete slate of NAO products. Chevron manufactures 11 different linear alpha olefin fractions. Alpha olefins are chemical intermediates used to make a variety of products, including polyethylenes, surfactants, synthetic lubricants and additives. Chevron Chemical currently operates an 800 million pounds-per-year NAO plant at its Baytown, Texas, facility. At that site, the original unit was built in 1965 and a subsequent unit was added in