France’s Technip has been awarded a contract to provide basic engineering and equipment for an ethylene cracking furnace being built in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was awarded by Taiwan’s CTCI, which earlier this year won a contract from Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Company for the project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work.

The furnace design will be based on Technip’s Ultra Selective Conversion (USC) furnace technology. Technip’s operating centre in Milton Keynes, UK, will execute the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2017.

Saudi Kayan announced plans in February 2015 to increase ethylene production capacity by 93,000 tonnes a year (t/y) and ethylene oxide by 61,000 t/y by the second quarter of 2017.

The company completed the complex in 2012 and its products include ethylene and its derivatives such as polyethylene and ethylene glycol.

Saudi Kayan is an affiliate of the kingdom’s largest petrochemicals producer, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), with 70 per cent of the company’s shares owned by the Saudi government and 30 per cent held by private investors.