Partners tender $6.4bn Al-Karaana petrochemicals complex

20 February 2014

Joint venture of Qatar petroleum and UK/Dutch Shell Group invites contractors to bid for two contracts

The joint venture partners developing the $6.4bn Al-Karaana Petrochemicals Complex have issued the tenders for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for the two main packages at the facility.

The release of the tenders is on schedule and indicates that Qatar is pushing ahead with the $13.8bn-worth of petrochemicals schemes it has planned. Al-Karaana is the name for the petrochemicals joint venture of Qatar Petroleum (QP) and the UK/Dutch Shell Group and will be built at Ras Laffan. QP will hold an 80 per cent share with Shell Group owning the remaining 20 per cent.  

“The next 12 months offers a lot of opportunities for contractors in the process plant sector [in Qatar],” a Middle East-based petrochemicals executive says. “But, there are only two packages available [at Al-Karaana] and I am sure contractors would have preferred there being more for a project of this size.”

MEED reported in June 2013 that the complex will be split into two large packages. They are:

  • Package 1: Mixed-feed steam cracker and offsites and utilities
  • Package 2: linear alpha olefins (LAO) unit, monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit, oxo-alcohols unit

Package 1 is open to three technology providers and they have been invited to team up with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors to bid. The potential bidders are:

The mixed-feed steam cracker unit will be supplied with ethane and propane feedstock. The cracker will have a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of ethylene and 170,000 t/y of propylene.

The cracker will be tendered to the technology providers on the basis that the winner will carry out the front-end engineering and design (feed), then execute the EPC in tandem with an EPC contractor.

Package 2 will concentrate on the EPC of the three process plants at the complex. The bidding groups are:

  • Chiyoda Corporation/Foster Wheeler/CTCI (Japan/US/Taiwan)
  • Daelim Industrial/ Hyundai E&C
  • GS E&C/Samsung Engineering/Saipem
  • Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)
  • Tecnimont/China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation (Italy/China)

The MEG unit will have a capacity of 1.5 million t/y and will use Shell Group technology. The work involves the construction of two trains, each with a capacity of 750,000 t/y.

The LAO and oxo-alcohols units will have capacities of 300,000 t/y and 250,000 t/y respectively.

The US’ Fluor is carrying out the feed contract for the three packages using Shell Group technology, as well as the offsites and utilities.

The submissions dates for bids are the 22 May for the technical proposals followed by the 21 August for un-priced commercial proposals and 8 September for priced commercial with awards to be made at the end of 2014. Commissioning of Al-Karaana is expected in late 2017 with full operational capacity being reached in 2018.

QP is also making progress with the other petrochemicals megaproject it is planning to build adjacent to the Al-Karaana complex in Ras Laffan.

The $7.4bn Al-Sejeel Petrochemicals Complex is an 80:20 joint venture of QP and Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) and is currently tendering the package for the mixed-feed cracker.

MEED reported in January that the bidders are made up of the technology providers plus their selected EPC partners. The terms of the contract will involve feed, technology provision and full EPC of the scheme. The bidding consortiums are:

  • CB&I Lummus/Daelim Industrial (US/South Korea)
  • KBR/GS E&C (US/South Korea)
  • Linde/Petrofac (Germany/UK)
  • Technip/CTCI (France/Taiwan)

QP and Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) have already awarded Italy’s Tecnimont the feed for the technical package and the US’ Bechtel will be carrying out the project management consultancy (PMC) for the scheme.

The Al-Sejeel project is a world-scale complex that will produce more than 3 million t/y of chemicals when completed.

The scheme will produce 1.4 million t/y of ethylene when completed, which will feed other units at the proposed complex. A further 850,000 t/y of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), 430,000 t/y of linear low-density polyethylene (LDPE), 760,000 t/y of polypropylene and 83,000 t/y of butadiene will be produced.

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