Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) and Borealis AG, Vienna, are advancing design and engineering on projects that will expand production capacities at their jointly held Abu Dhabi Polymers Co. Ltd.'s (Borouge) integrated polyolefins complex in Ruwais, about 250 km west of Abu Dhabi City, UAE.
As part of a new framework agreement, ADNOC and Borealis are entering front-end engineering and design for construction of the proposed Borouge 4 complex, which would include a mixed-feed cracker to produce both polyolefin and nonpolyolefin products using naphtha feedstock available in Abu Dhabi as well as from other downstream derivatives units, the companies said.
To be integrated with ADNOC subsidiary Abu Dhabi Oil Refinery Co.'s (Takreer) more than 800,000-b/d Ruwais refining complex, the Borouge 4 expansion would reach startup sometime in 2023.
The companies also will launch a tender this year inviting bids for engineering, procurement, and construction services on a project to add a fifth polypropylene (PP) plant at Borouge’s Ruwais complex.
To be integrated with the existing Borouge 3, the new plant, or PP5, will be equipped with Borealis’s proprietary Borstar proprietary polyolefin multimodal process technology to produce about 500,000 tonnes/year of PP using surplus feedstock from Takreer’s new propane dehydrogenation unit commissioned in 2015 as part of the $10-billion Ruwais refinery expansion (OGJ Online, Nov. 13, 2015).
The framework agreement also calls for ADNOC and Borealis to review the possibility of extending their Borouge joint venture—established in 1998—beyond its first 30-year lifetime.
Confirmation of the proposed expansion projects follows ADNOC’s early July announcement that, as part of its “ADNOC 2030” strategy, the company would expand its partnership model across the entire business, which in the downstream, meant focusing on partners able to help boost ADNOC’s petrochemical production to 11.4 million tpy by 2025 (OGJ Online, July 10, 2017).
“The Borouge 4 complex and PP plant will allow us to grow our current petrochemical production to almost 10 million [tpy], enabling us to take advantage of the market opportunities we have identified, particularly in Asia, where the high-grade polymer market is set to double by 2040,” said Sultan Jaber, ADNOC’s chief executive officer.
The companies did not disclose further details regarding either the Borouge 4 FEED or PP5 tender.
Borealis told investors in February it expected a final investment decision on the proposed Borouge 4 complex sometime in early 2018, with final approval on PP5 due by yearend.
If approved based on the current timeline, the PP5 plant is planned for startup in 2020, Borealis said.
Other projects
Alongside the proposed Borouge 4 and PP5 expansions, the Borouge JV also is executing a project to optimize operations of existing units at the Ruwais complex.
Already in progress and scheduled to be completed by 2020, the optimization program involves debottlenecking works at the Borouge 1, 2, and 3 complexes, Borealis said in its 2016 annual report.
Completed in 2001 at an investment of $1.2 billion, Borouge 1 is a fully integrated olefins-polyolefins complex that includes a 600,000-tpy ethane cracker as well as two Borstar polyethylene (PE) units.
Commissioned in 2010, the $5-billion Borouge 2 expansion includes a 1.5 million tpy ethane cracker, a 752,000 olefins conversion unit to convert ethylene to propylene, a 1.14 million-tpy Borstar PE unit, and an 800,000-tpy Borstar PP unit.
Borouge 3, which reached full startup in 2016, houses a 1.5 million-tpy, two Borstar PE plants (540,000 tpy each), two Borstar PP units (480,000 tpy each), a 350,000-tpy low-density PE unit, and an 80,000-tpy cross-linked PE plant, ADNOC and Borealis said.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
