Project Name: BOROUGE - Borouge Step III (Polyolefins)
Name of Client: BOROUGE - Abu Dhabi Polymers Company Limited
Budget (US$): 2,500,000,000
Main contractor: Not yet appointed
Facility type: Polyolefins
Status: PMC Contract Award
PMC: Foster Wheeler
Location : Ruwais
Project Status
On December 15, 2003 an MOU was signed between the shareholders of Borouge (Adnoc & Borealis) regarding the development of their Petrochemical complex in Ruwais. They agreed to proceed with a feasibility study for developing a new ethylene cracker and downstream polyolefins plant.
The concept is to utilise the additional ethane that will be available once OGD III & AGD II come on stream. (See Project Section).
A decision whether to proceed or not was to be made during the course of 2004, with a probable start up in 2008. In November 2003, Parsons completed a feasibility study for the expansion of the Borouge Petrochemical complex.
Borouge have agreed to offtake the whole 600,000 tpy ethylene production.
Borealis' Borstar technology has been selected for the polyethylene and polypropylene plants.
The process technology for the ethane cracker will be selected during the FEED
It is believed that the following companies were invited to bid for the FEED and PMC package: Fluor (Holland), Foster Wheeler (UK), Jacobs, Kvarnaer and Parsons (UK)
Foster Wheeler and Parsons Corporation are the final bidders in competition.
As of early December 2004, the following interested banks hasve been asked to submit their proposals:BNP Paribas, Citibank, HSBC and Societe Generale
According to the RFP (Request for Proposal) the bank will provide full financial advisory services.
The following companies submitted bids for the PMC contract: Fluor Corporation, Jacobs Engineering and Aker Kvaerner.
In early July 2005, Foster Wheeler were awarded the PMC contract.
Foster Wheeler will provide professional project management, project control and engineering services to assist Borouge's management team in scope definition, front end engineering design FEED), contracting, scheduling, and environmental impact assessment up to award of EPC contracts.
Borouge has also given the PMC contractor the option to roll over the contract to cover the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages.
It is believed that the Ethane Cracker package will be tendered in December 2005. The expansion, located next to Borouge’s existing petrochemical complex at Ruwais, is expected to come on stream in 2010.
Project Scope
The project consists of:
1.5 million mtpa Ethylene Cracker
Two polyethylene plants (Linear Low Density and High Density) with a combined output of 540 Kilo Tonnes
540,000 mtpa polypropylene unit (Homo Polymer and Bulk co-Polymer)
400,000 mtpa polypropylene unit (Homo polymer and random co-polymer)
Olefin conversion unit - Propylene and Butene-1
Utilities and offsites,
Buildings and
Marine facilities
The polyethylene and polypropylene plants will use Borealis' Borstar technology.
There will be sufficient feedstock available from OGD III & AGD II to have a cracker with a capacity of up to 1.4 million tpy.
Current downstream capacity is 600,000 t/y of PE and PP. The new capacity will be marketed primarily to the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions.
Borstar Technology
Borstar was developed by Borealis from scratch because no commercially available bimodal PE technology met the demands of the next generation of PE technology.
With a proprietary catalyst, Borstar can produce the whole range of PE from linear low density (LLDPE) to high density (HDPE), all in one production campaign.
Polymers can be produced with widely ranging molecular weights, molecular weight distribution and comonomer distribution.
The Borstar process combines a loop reactor using supercritical propane as the polymerisation medium, placed in series with a gas-phase reactor where the second stage of the reaction takes place.
Project Structure
The shareholders of Borouge are: Adnoc 60 per cent, Borealis 40 per cent
The following have submitted bids for financial advisory services: BNP Paribas, Citibank, HSBC, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered
July 15 2005: HSBC was selected for the financial advisory mandate.
The financing schedule sees a financing plan drawn up by the end of September, with financial close due by early 2007.
Schedules for this Project
June 7 2004 PMC and FEED Technical bids due (Original)
June 21 2004 PMC Technical Bid Submission (Extended)
Early Dec 2004 RFP for banks issued
Q1 2005 Bids submission
July 2005 PMC contract awarded
July 15 2005 Financial advisor appointed
early 2006 EPC tender issued
2010 Project completion