Under the terms of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, the JV will build a plant with capacity of 770,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of paraxylene and 330,000 t/y of benzene. The facility's technology has been licensed from the US' UOP. The UK office of the US' Bechtel is the front-end engineering and design (FEED) and project manager.

The JV was widely expected to win the work after submitting in October the lowest revised price, some $58 million below its original low bid earlier in the year. Two other companies - South Korea's GSEngineering & Construction and Paris-based Technip - bid for the work (MEED 8:7:05).

The award of the contract will mean the associated styrene monomer package at the Olefins II petrochemical complex can also now go ahead. The client, The Kuwait Styrene Company (TKSC), received in mid-October revised prices from three companies and groups for the estimated $200 million-250 million EPC contract, which involves the construction of a 450,000-t/y plant. South Korea's Daelim Industrial Company is understood to be frontrunner for the work (MEED 18:11:05).

The complex's ethylene cracker and ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol (EO/EG) plant packages were respectively awarded last year to Technip and the US/Korean JV of Foster Wheeler and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company (MEED 23:12:05; 25:11:05).

The final process package covers the revamp and expansion of the existing polyethylene unit by 300,000 t/y. The client, The Kuwait Olefins Company (TKOC), originally planned to tender the contract competitively. However, following a downward revision to the scope of works the project will now be carried out by the US' Fluor Corporation in its role as engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor for the utilities and offsites programme and as the complex's overall project management consultant (PMC).

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