Equate Petrochemical Company has reported a 2005 net income of more than $588 million, the sixth consecutive year that it made profits since starting operations in November 1997.

“It was a challenging year, yet our sales value is a testimonial to the hard work and dedication of our people and partners,” commented Equate CFO, Abdulkarim Mubarak.
During 2005, the company produced 1.025 million tonnes of polyethylene and ethylene glycol. This production volume was achieved despite technical difficulties resulting in an unplanned shutdown. Product prices in 2005 for all petrochemical products were impressive. Polyethylene prices increased by $92 per tonne for the year, while ethylene glycol prices were lower by $96 per tonne versus 2004 average prices.
The net profit for the company in 2004 was $620.5 million. As of 2005, MEGlobal is acting as the sole distributor of all MEG and DEG products manufactured by Equate under a commercial distribution agreement.
“In preparation for expansion plans, the result of our bridge finance facility was reflected as a lower financing cost, which combined with the robust cash flow, has enabled us to fund the expansion projects,” said a company spokesman.
 “While entering into a new decade of operation, Equate is preparing for its future role as a single operator for its partners’ new phase of expansions to build a new ethylene and derivatives complex in Shuaiba.
For Equate’s Olefins II project, Fluor Corporation has signed an MoU to provide engineering, procurement and construction management services for the utilities and infrastructure portion of the project.
This scope is in addition to the programme management contract it was awarded in 2004 to perform overall management consultancy and front-end engineering services.
The billion-plus-dollar project is located approximately 40 km, south of Kuwait City in Shuaiba.  Equate is owned by Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) and Dow Chemical Company, each of which has a 45 per cent stake, and by Boubyan Petrochemical Company (10 per cent). PIC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and one of six of its specialised subsidiaries.
Olefins II will include construction of an 850,000-tonnes-per-year (tpy) cracker, a 600,000 tpy ethylene glycol unit, a 450,000 tpy ethyl benzene/styrene monomer unit and a debottleneck expansion of an additional 225,000 tpy of polyethylene capacity at the existing complex.
Olefins II will be similar in volume to the first project and, consequently, the completed facility will double the capacity at the existing olefins complex.
In addition to Olefins II, PIC and Dow expect to build an ethylbenzene/ styrene unit of 450,000 tpy supplied with ethylene from Olefins II and benzene from the aromatics project, to be built simultaneously on a site adjacent to Equate, which will manage, operate and maintain the Olefins II facilities.
Groundbreaking occ-urred in March 2005, with completion of the complex expected in the second quarter of 2008.
Fluor provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and project management.
On 12th March 2006 Equate celebrated what it described as a “significant and unprecedented safety milestone,” surpassing the 10-million mark for consecutive man-hours worked without a lost workday injury.
Employees achieved this new safety record, which is the longest consecutive record for Equate since start-up and which was maintained for 1,052 days since May 2003.
“Working 10-million safe hours without a lost-work-day injury is a tremendous achievement and is accomplished by every employees’ dedication to safety behavior”, said Hamad Al Terkait, Equate’s president and CEO. He added, “This is truly all employees’ safety award and proof that Equate continues to lead our industry in safety performance and set new standards of achievements.”