Expansion of 1.5 mln tpa Borouge 3 ethane cracker underway

31-May-10

Borouge has inked a US$1.075 bln contract with The Linde Group formally for the construction of a 1.5 mln tpa ethane cracker at its’ existing production site in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. The new cracker is the third of its kind to be built by The Linde Group for Borouge in a decade, and upon completion, will be the world’s largest ethane cracker complex. It will complement the existing 600,000 tpa and planned 1.5 mln tpa ethane crackers at the plant. Borouge has awarded three major Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts of US$2.6 bln for this project. Significant investments will expand the production capacity of the plant to 4.5 mln tpa by 2013, making it the largest integrated polyolefins site in the world. A contract worth US$1255 billion for the construction of two Borstar enhanced polyethylene and two Borstar enhanced polypropylene units, and a contract worth US$400 mln for the construction of a 350,000 tpa low density polyethylene unit was awarded to the Joint Venture consortium Tecnimont of Italy and Samsung Engineering of South Korea, on a lump sum turnkey basis. The annual capacity of the polyethylene units is 1,080,000 tpa and the polypropylene units, 960,000 tpa. Also, a contract worth US$935 mln for the Utilities and Off-site facilities for the expanded plant was awarded to Hyundai Engineering and Construction of South Korea. Tecnimont has been awarded the FEED contracts for the entire Borouge 3 Project, activity successfully completed at beginning of 2010. Site preparation is being executed by Al Asab General Transportations and Contracting Establishment.