Mitsui wins Ilam HDPE

23 April 2004
Japan's Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Company (MESC)has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant at the Ilam petrochemicals complex in the west. On a second project, National Petrochemical Company (NPC)is pressing ahead with the evaluation of bids from four international companies - submitted in early April - for the contract to build the ethane cracker at the olefins 8 complex (MEED 12:3:04).

MESC won the HDPE contract in partnership with the local Energy Industries Engineering & Design (EIED), the engineering arm of the local Oil Industries Engineering Company. The team earlier this year submitted a low bid of $160 million to build the 300,000-tonne-a-year (t/y) HDPE unit, which is scheduled to come on stream in 2006. The client is NPC affiliate Petrochemical Industries Development Management Company (Pidmco). On a second project at Ilam, the construction of a 320,000-t/y cracker, contractors have been given until the end of April to prepare EPC proposals. Paris-based Technipand Germany's Lindeare among the companies expected to bid.

The four bidders for the 1.1 million-t/y olefins 8 cracker, situated in the Petrochemicals Special Economic Zone at Bandar Imam, are: Linde, Technip, Europe's ABB Lummus Globaland a European office of the US' Stone & Webster. The contract will involve both EPC and front-end engineering and design (FEED) work. On a third NPC cracker project, to be built at the olefins 11 complex, companies have been given until mid-June to submit bids for the 1.2 million t/y unit.

NPC is expected to issue within weeks the invitation to bid (ITB) for a fourth cracker to be built at its olefins 12 complex located at the Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. The complex will consist of the world's biggest ethylene cracker, with a capacity of 1.9 million t/y, and several downstream units.

Four companies are in the race for the EPC contract to build a mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) unit at the Kharg island petrochemicals complex. Prices for the 500,000-t/y unit are expected to be opened in early May.

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