Ineos Oligomers, a division of Ineos AG, Rolle, Switzerland, has let a contract to a joint venture of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., Montreal, and JV Driver Group, Houston, to design and build a polyalphaolefin (PAO) unit at Ineos Olefins & Polymers USA’s Chocolate Bayou petrochemical complex in Alvin, Tex.
As part of the lumpsum contract, SNC-Lavalin and JV Driver will deliver engineering, procurement, and construction services for the PAO unit that, using Ineos Oligomers’s proprietary and differentiated process technology, will have a production capacity of 120,000 tonnes/year, making it the world’s largest single PAO train once in service, SNC-Lavalin said.
SNC-Lavalin is providing overall project management, engineering, procurement services, while JV Driver will overall construction management. The service providers will jointly self-perform the main civil, mechanical, structural, electrical, and instrumentation construction scopes of work, SNC-Lavalin said.
Without disclosing a value of the EPC contract, SNC-Lavalin did confirm the PAO unit is scheduled for startup in October 2019.
Approved in late 2017, the new PAO unit will receive its feedstock from the adjacent 420,000-tpy linear alpha olefin (LAO) plant currently under construction at the same site, Ineos said in a Dec. 14, 2017, release.
Scheduled for startup in November, the LAO unit comes as part of Ineos’ plan to help meet rising demand for LAO in the US Gulf Coast (USGC) and abroad (OGJ Online, Sept. 13, 2016).
The LAO unit at Ineos’ Chocolate Bayou site—which already houses two ethylene crackers and provides ready access to the USGC ethylene pipeline network—also will supply growing USGC polyethylene capacity, as well as provide feedstock to enable the company’s long-term PAO capacity growth to support demand for high-performance synthetic lubricants (OGJ Online, May 17, 2016).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
