Ethylene glycol award by mid April

22 March 2002

Three companies are preparing to submit final prices by the end of March to build an ethylene glycol (EG) unit for Jubail United Petrochemical Company (JUPC). An award is expected in mid April for the estimated $220 million-250 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract (MEED 4:1:02).

Japan's Toyo Engineering Corporation, South Korea's Samsung Engineeringand Paris-based Technip-Coflexipsubmitted technical bids in late December and commercial bids in January for the contract. Both Toyo and Technip are now working on other projects for Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), which owns JUPC, with the Japanese company building a polyethylene plant in Jubail and Technip building an acetic acid plant in Yanbu. Samsung is working as the EPC contractor for a private petrochemical company on a polypropylene project in Jubail. The project manager for the JUPC complex is the US' Fluor Daniel.

The EG unit, which will have a capacity of 575,000 tonnes a year (t/y), is the second EPC package on JUPC's estimated $1,500 million olefins complex. In November, a consortium led by the US' Halliburton KBRwon a $350 million contract to build the main ethane cracker at the complex, with a capacity of 1 million t/y.

The final EPC contract will be for a 150,000-t/y alpha olefins plant. JUPC has made solicitations of interest for the plant, but contractors say they expect the technology supplier, Germany's Linde, to seek to carry out the EPC contract itself because the technology has not yet been applied elsewhere.

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