Contract let for proposed grassroots petrochemicals complex in Egypt

Anchorage Investments Ltd. has let a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC to provide its proprietary C₃ Oleflex technology for a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant to be built at subsidiary Anchor Benitoite’s proposed grassroots petrochemical complex in Suez, Egypt, near the southern boundary of the Suez Canal.

As part of the contract, Honeywell UOP will deliver licensing for the Oleflex technology, in addition to basic engineering design, equipment, catalysts, adsorbents, and other unidentified services for the plant, which will use a feedstock of propane to produce 750,000 tonnes/year of on-purpose, polymer-grade propylene to help meet growing regional demand for plastic products, the service provider said.

Anchor Benitoite will use on-purpose propylene production from the PDH unit as feedstock for the planned complex’s additional downstream units, said Ahmed M. A. Moharram, Anchorage Investment’s founder and managing director.

UOP disclosed neither a value of the contract nor a timeframe for the project’s targeted completion.

Complex overview

Requiring an overall investment of nearly $2 billion, Anchor Benitoite’s proposed petrochemical complex at Suez will house five major installations with various production units equipped to produce a total of 1.75 million tpy of petrochemical products, including propylene, polypropylene, crude acrylic acid, n-butanol, and butyl acrylate, according to Anchorage Investment’s website.

Intended to help Egypt increase its competitiveness and position as a petrochemical hub, as well as attract new investments into the country, the grassroots complex will have deep-sea access to the port and connection to multiple nearby pipelines, enabling product distribution to both domestic and global markets, according to the company.

A timeline for construction and commissioning of the proposed petrochemicals development has yet to be revealed.