CB&I has been awarded an additional project, valued at approximately $50 million, for storage tanks at an oil-sands project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.
CB&I’s scope of work includes the engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction of 12 cone-roof tanks at the oil -sands project. CB&I’s contract is scheduled for completion in 2013.
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been selected by both BP and Davy Process Technology Ltd. (a subsidiary of Johnson Matthey Plc), to help seek deployment opportunities for the proven BP/Davy Fischer Tropsch process, on a nonexclusive basis. Under the agreement, Jacobs is providing engineering resources to potential licensees.
The BP/Davy Fischer Tropsch process transforms syngas into liquid hydrocarbons, and is a low-technology-risk process for producing diesel, jet fuel (JP8) and naphtha from natural gas, bio-mass or coal-derived syngas.
BP and Davy have successfully demonstrated the fixed-bed technology on a semi-commercial scale in Nikiski, Alaska, with full-scale fixed-bed reaction tubes where the nominal 300-bpd complex met or exceeded all of its performance targets. This process is now available for license to third parties, and BP’s and Davy’s continuing development is focused on retrofit enhancements.
The Shaw Group Inc. has renewed a contract with Albemarle Corp. to provide maintenance, engineering, construction, reliability, operations and other labor services at Albemarle’s specialty chemicals manufacturing locations in Arkansas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas. Shaw will also provide services to Albemarle’s Michigan plant starting in May 2011.
Sasol has selected S & B Engineers and Constructors as its engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor to construct its ethylene tetramerization plant at Lake Charles, Louisiana. The pioneering plant will use Sasol’s proprietary technology to convert ethylene to 1-octene and 1-hexene. Developed in Sasol’s R&D laboratories in South Africa, the process selectively produces alpha olefins required for the high-growth polymer markets. Engineers and scientists from Sasol North America participated with an international team to design the unit, which will utilize the new technology on an industrial manufacturing scale.
According to André de Ruyter, Sasol’s senior group executive responsible for operations, the project is targeted for start up in mid-2013, and will produce 100,000 metric tpy of combined 1-octene and 1-hexene.
KBR’s subsidiary Roberts & Schaefer (R&S) has been selected to construct a petroleum coker (pet coke) material-handling system for Motiva Enterprises LLC’s Port Arthur refinery expansion project in Port Arthur, Texas. The contract is part of a larger effort by Motiva to expand the Port Arthur refinery. The expansion is expected to increase current capacity to 600,000 bpd in 2012, reportedly making it the largest refinery in the US and one of the top 10 in the world.
R&S will install, start up and test the pet coke system, as well as provide onsite construction management and technical support for commissioning/testing. The $9.1-million contract award follows R&S’s execution of the project’s engineering and procurement phase.
By way of an internationally attended groundbreaking ceremony, TransGas Development Systems, LLC, has begun construction of what is said to be America’s largest coal-to-gasoline complex, the Adams Fork Energy plant in Mingo County, West Virginia. The ceremony was conducted on the project site at Wharncliffe, West Virginia. The plant will convert regional coal into 18,000 bpd of premium-grade, ultra-clean gasoline. The facility was permitted by the State of West Virginia, and is based on Uhde’s PRENFLO PDQ gasification technology provided by Uhde Corp. of America, which belongs to the ThyssenKrupp Group.
The plant complex will consist of coal preparation, coal gasification, gas cleaning, methanol synthesis and a methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) technology. This coal-to-gasoline complex in Mingo County is expected to be completed by 2015. HP