Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) has awarded five technology licensor contracts worth $80m on its Liwa Plastics petrochemicals project.

The $3.6bn project in the northern port of Sohar is currently in the front-end engineering and design (feed) phase with construction expected to start in 2015.

CB&I subsidiary Randall was awarded the technology contract for the natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction, which will be applied at a gas extraction plant in Fahud, central Oman. Feedstocks will be extracted from natural gas and transported to Sohar via a 300-kilometre pipeline.

France-based Axens won technology deal for the pygas hydrogenation unit, which is designed to produce components such as isoprene, benzene, toluene and xylenes.

The US’ CB&I has been selected as the licensor to the MTBE producing unit.

US-based LyondellBasell was selected to provide the technology for the polypropylene unit using its Spheripol process.  Finally, Houston-based Univation Technologies will provide the technology for the polyethylene unit.

Earlier this year, CB&I was selected as the technology licensor for the steam cracker, while the project management consultancy contract for the scheme was awarded Engineers India.

According to industry sources, Orpic has issued a solicitation of interest (SoI) for companies interested in bidding for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages.

The project has a total planned capacity of 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of plastics and, after its completion, Orpic will have the capacity to produce 1.4 million t/y of polyethylene and polypropylene.