Oman selects Sohar for a $3.6 billion Plastics Project
The Oman Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (ORPIC) took the opportunity of the Polyolefins Plastics Arabia Conference organized in Muscat in May 2013 to unveil the details of a greenfield world-scale petrochemical complex to be located in Sohar.
As most of the Gulf countries, the Sultanate of Oman is not willing to rely only on upstream sector to develop its economy.
The ongoing development of the conventional and unconventional oil and gas in Central Oman will provide significant additional resources not only for export but also as feedstock for a petrochemical industry.
In order to send the signal of Oman running for high added value polymers, ORPIC has called its project Sohar Plastics Project.
To be integrated to the Sohar Refinery, the Sohar Plastics Project will be developed in close coordination with the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project.
Previously called Sohar Refinery Expansion Project, the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project is more advanced than the Sohar Plastics Projects since CB&I Lummus completed the front end engineering and design (FEED) in 2012.
Since then, ORPIC appointed CB&I Lummus as project manager consultant (PMC) for the qualification of the engineering companies and the preparation of the call for tender of the different engineering, construction and procurement (EPC) packages to be awarded for this Sohar Refinery Improvement Project.
With $1.5 billion capital expenditure, the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project is due to expand the production of the refinery from the current 116,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 176,000 b/d.
As a result the Sohar refinery Expansion project should include a:
- Crude Distillation Unit (CDU)
- Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU)
- Hydrocracker Unit (HCU) for which Chevron Lummus Global is providing the license
- Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU) for which Black and Veatch is the licensor
- Isomerization Unit (ISOM)
- PSA Unit for Hydrogen
- Sour Water Strippers
- Amine Regeneration
- Offsites & Utilities
In respect with the actual stage of the bidding process for the EPC contracts, ORPIC is planning with the support of CB&I Lummus as PMC to award the different packages to the engineering companies in the second half of 2013 for the completion of the Sohar Refinery Expansion project in 2016.
ORPIC to award Sohar Plastics Project FEED in 2013
In order to synchronize the commercial operations of the petrochemical units with the output of the expanded refinery, ORPIC is planning to award the FEED of the Sohar Plastics Project by the end of the year 2013.
In addition to the Sohar Refinery Expansion, the Sohar Plastic Project will benefit from the liquids rich natural gas in Oman.
In Fahud, ORPIC will build a gas treatment plant to separate the natural gas liquids (NGL) from the natural gas.
All the extracted ethane, butane, propane and other condensate will provide valuable feedstock to the Sohar Plastics Project.
From the actual concept, the Sohar Plastics Project should include olefins and aromatics production units:
- High density polyethylene (HDPE)
- Low density polyethylene
- Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE)
- Benzene
In respect with this basic design the Sohar Plastics Project should have a capacity of:
- 420,000 t/y of HDPE
- 420,000 t/y of LDPE
- 215,000 t/y of polypropylene
- 168,000 t/y of gasoline
- 46,000 t/y of benzene
According to these capacities, ORPIC is planning to invest $3.6 billion capital expenditure in Sohar Plastics Projects in expecting it to run into commercial operations in 2018.