The State of Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry, Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada, and Shell’s CEO, Peter Voser, have signed an agreement to develop a world-scale petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. This agreement follows the conclusion of a joint feasibility study conducted by the partners, Qatar Petroleum and Shell.
The scope under consideration includes a world-scale steam cracker, with feedstock coming from natural gas projects in Qatar; a mono-ethylene glycol plant of up to 1.5 million tpy using Shell’s proprietary Only MEG Advantaged (OMEGA) technology; 300 kiloton/yr of linear alpha olefins using Shell’s proprietary Shell Higher Olefin Process (SHOP); and another olefin derivative. The complex will produce cost-competitive petrochemical products to be marketed primarily into Asian growth markets. Qatar Petroleum will have an 80% equity interest in the project and Shell will have 20%.
The Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Co. (SAFCO), a manufacturing affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC), has awarded SAIPEM a turnkey contract for the engineering design, supply and construction of the SAFCO-5 fertilizer plant. The new plant will reportedly be one of the world’s largest urea plants built at a cost of SR 2 billion with a capacity of 1.1 million tpy of urea. It is expected to start commercial production in the third quarter of 2014. The construction schedule is 26 months beginning from December 2011.
The project will convert 850,000 metric ton of CO2 (green-house gas), that is presently vented to the atmosphere, into urea. This will qualify SAFCO to apply for global Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) certification and enable it to gain credits for these emission cuts.
The Shaw Group Inc. has a contract with the South Refineries Co., which is part of the Republic of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, to provide a feasibility study for the rehabilitation of its 140,000-bpd refinery in Basra, Iraq. The study will assess the refinery’s condition and estimate the engineering, equipment supply and construction services required to improve its operation.
The study is funded by the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) through a grant to the South Refineries Co. This is the first grant the agency has provided directly to an Iraqi grantee, marking the USTDA’s support of Iraq’s long-term economic development.
In Iraq, Shaw is conducting feasibility studies and front-end engineering and design (FEED) for two grassroots 150,000-bpd refineries near the cities of Maissan and Kirkuk, for the Republic of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil. The FEED work includes all process units, offsite facilities and utilities for both refineries. Through a fluidized catalytic-cracking (FCC) alliance, Shaw, and its partner, Axens, are providing a process design package for a 30,000-bpd residual fluidized catalytic-cracking (RFCC) unit at Midland Refineries Co.’s refinery in Daura.
MAN Diesel & Turbo has signed one 6-year enterprise framework agreement for the supply of new compression equipment for Shell locations worldwide and another 5-year framework agreement for the supply of aftermarket parts and services for existing rotating equipment.
The agreement for new compression units covers a wide range of centrifugal compressors for sweet- and sour-gas services that will be used in both onshore and offshore applications.
MAN Diesel & Turbo and Shell have enjoyed close business relationships for many decades and have cooperated in major up- and downstream projects around the globe, including the world´s largest gas-to-liquid (GTL) project in Qatar. HP