Damas to set up jewellery unit
Damas has announced plans to set up a high-tech jewellery-manufacturing unit at the Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC) infrastructure.

The Dh45 million ($12.25 million) Damas jewellery factory will be ready for operation within the next 12 months. Damas expects to produce items worth Dh150 million per year.
“Every piece we manufacture from this unit will be innovative and high-end jewellery,” said Damas managing director Tawhid Abdullah. 
The factory, measuring 160,000 sq ft, will incorporate all the safety elements while being environmentally friendly.
Damas has manufacturing units in locations such as Lebanon, India, Italy, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, China and Dubai.  Damas has also announced that the diamond cutting division of the DMCC unit will manufacture the special Damas cut for which it holds patent rights.

Technip USA gets contract
The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), Kuwait, have contracted Technip USA Corporation, a fully owned affiliate of Technip, to provide engineering services covering cracking furnaces and the recovery section of the new ethylene plant planned for the Olefins-2 Petrochemicals Complex, which is to be constructed in Shuaiba, Kuwait, and which is a joint venture between Dow and PIC.
The plant design will be based on Technip’s ethylene technology provided by Technip Claremont in California.

Lurgi to build methanol plant
Germany’s Lurgi has been awarded a contract to build the Zagros Petrochemical Company’s (ZPC) $194 million methanol plant.
The plant will be located in Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone at Bandar Assaluyeh. Lurgi and its local partner, Energy Industries Engineering & Design (EIED), the engineering arm of the local Oil Industries Engineering Company, will build a 5,000 tonnes per day (tpd) methanol unit of ZPC, a subsidiary of National Petrochemical Company (NPC).
The contract is due to be completed within three years.

Bids to be returned by mid-June
Prequalified contractors have been requested by National Petrochemical Company (NPC) to return bids by mid-June for its cracker project to be built at the Olefins 11 complex in Assaluyeh, Iran.
The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts will be tendered by NPC project management subsidiary Petrochemical Industries Development Management Company (Pidmco).
Olefins 11 will comprise an ethane cracker with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year (tpy), a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant with a capacity of 300,000 tpy, a linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant with a capacity of 300,000 tpy, a styrene monomer plant with a capacity of 600,000 tpy and a monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant with a capacity of 700,000 tpy.

UDC appoints financial adviser
United Development Company (UDC) of Qatar has appointed Royal Bank of Scotland as financial advisor for its planned QR9.1 billion ($2.5 billion) aluminium smelter plant including power facilities.
Clifford Chance has been retained as legal advisor. The appointments are an important step in the company’s plan to approach financial markets in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Construction of the plant is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2005, metal production is slated for the last quarter of 2007 and full production will occur by the end of 2008. UDC is in the final stages of negotiations with international providers of smelter technology to develop the plant. UDC is to contribute 20 per cent of the total cost of the project.

Acetex in Saudi joint venture
Saudi Arabia’s National Petrochemical Industrialisation Company (Tasnee Petrochemicals) has finalised a definitive joint venture with Canada’s Acetex Corporation for the construction of acetic acid, vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) and methanol projects in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The cost of the three plants is estimated at SR3.7 billion ($1 billion) 
The projects will be located at the petrochemical complex site of Tasnee Petrochemicals, an affiliate of National Industrialisation Company, in Jubail Industrial City.
The annual production capacity will be 500,000 tonnes of acetic acid, 275,000 tonnes of VAM and 1.8 million tonnes of methanol. Production will begin in 2007.
Under the joint venture agreement, Acetex will provide its proprietary technology for the integrated production of acetic acid and methanol. The joint venture has yet to appoint a financial adviser for the project’s debt portion. A selection is expected within the next three to six months.

Scenic Route to open plant
Yorkshire-based Scenic Route, the international scenic, theming and fit-out specialist, plans to open a production plant in the UAE.
“Our aim is to be the number one scenic and theming facility in the UAE,” said Scenic Route sales director Mark Pyrah.
The company is currently the scenic and theming contractor at Khalifa Park in Abu Dhabi and two other local projects it intends to announce shortly.
Scenic Route has completed more than 300 projects worldwide, including the Nestle Kidz Zones in the UK and the Antwerp Aquarium in the Netherlands.
“Scenic Route is one of the UK’s largest scenic workshops, providing a turnkey package including setworks, scenic painting, props, sculpture, display joinery, metalwork and model making. We would like to bring this expertise to our plant in the UAE,” said Pyrah.

J Ray to do additional work in Qatar
Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II) has awarded J Ray McDermott (J Ray) SA, a subsidiary of McDermott International, an additional offshore work contract worth QR254.8 million ($70 million).
Ras Laffan exercised the WH9 deck and pipeline option under the RasGas expansion project contract, which was originally awarded to J Ray three years ago.
The WH9 project includes turnkey project management, design engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, hook-up and mechanical completion of a 2,200-tonne wellhead deck, installation of a 7-km, 28-inch intra-field pipeline and 10-km intra-field subsea cable.
Once the deck is in place, it will handle a production of 1,200 million standard cu ft of produced fluids (gas condensate and water) per day for supply to the onshore plant at Ras Laffan.
The WH9 facility will be similar to the three wellhead platforms already engineered, constructed and installed by J Ray under the RasGas expansion project.
The project is expected to take 33 months to complete.