The main olefins unit on olefins 11, comprising an ethane cracker with capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year (t/y), will be issued as a straight engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, while a front-end engineering and design (FEED) tender will be issued for the downstream elements of the complex. These will include a 300,000-t/y high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant, a 300,000-t/y linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant, a 600,000-t/y styrene monomer plant and a 700,000-t/y mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) plant.

Olefins 12 will run in parallel to olefins 11. It will comprise a 1.9 million-t/y ethane cracker, an HDPE/LLDPE swing plant of 300,000 t/y, a 660,000-t/y MEG plant, a 300,000-t/y polypropylene plant and a 388,000-t/y benzene unit. The complexes are to have liquid feedstock consisting of South Pars carbon-associated gases. The EPC contracts will be tendered by NPC project management subsidiary Petrochemical Industries Development Management Company (Pidmco).

Potential bidders for the olefins 8 complex are: Paris-based Technip, Germany's Linde, Europe's ABB Lummus Globaland a European office of the US' Stone & Webster.