Jul 19 2007
Aker Kvaerner has been awarded a contract by ShenHua Baotou Coal Chemicals Co., Ltd for a new polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) facility at its coal chemical complex in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. Aker Kvaerner is providing the basic engineering design, technical advisory services, and certain offshore equipment procurement service. The contract value to Aker Kvaerner was not disclosed.
ShenHua Baotou is part of ShenHua Group Corporation Limited - the biggest coal enterprise group in China and one of the largest coal enterprises in the world. The project will utilise UNIPOL™ PP Technology from The Dow Chemical Company and Univation's UNIPOL™ PE technology - two of the core technologies in the Aker Kvaerner Process portfolio. Both the new plants will have a capacity of 300,000 metric tons per annum (tpa). The project commences this month, and the PP plant start-up is expected in latter half of 2010.
This is the sixth Polyolefins project that the company is currently executing. Johan Cnossen, President of AK Process, said, "We are delighted to be working with the ShenHua Group again on this new project. We have a strong project record and considerable local knowledge of working in the Chinese market. Both technologies are proven to be highly competitive. And, having worked across nearly 40 of the UNIPOL™ PP or PE projects around the world, Aker Kvaerner has the experience to execute this project to a high standard."
UNIPOL™ PP Technology from The Dow Chemical Company offers a process that is easy to operate, simple to customise, highly reliable, and provides high product consistency. This high process flexibility combines with a broad product capability, to deliver a very competitive solution. Indeed, the more than 35 UNIPOL™ PP reactor lines in operation around the world consistently rank among their owner's most efficient and reliable. Aker Kvaerner had a major role in the engineering, procurement and construction of 12 of these PP reactor lines, making the company one of the most experienced UNIPOL™ PP process contractors in the industry.
nivation's UNIPOL™ PE process offers a high quality, broad product range, combined with the ability to scale up or down or change product mix. The process also offers lower capital and operating costs. Aker Kvaerner had a major role in the engineering, procurement and construction of 26 of the more than 100 UNIPOL™ PE reactor lines either in operation or under construction around the world - and again the operating lines rank highly for efficiency and reliability.
Aker Kvaerner also provided project management consultancy services for ShenHua Group's Coal Liquification project at Majiata, Inner Mongolia, which will be mechanically completed in the second half of 2007. The project was the first commercial scale plant incorporating direct coal liquefaction, a process that involves the conversion of coal to hydrocarbon liquids via hydrogenation.