Aramco, TotalEnergies award EPC contracts for $11bn petchem complex

Dhahran/Paris – Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies have awarded engineering contracts for the $11 billion (€10 billion) Amiral petrochemical complex, which, among other units, will include a polybutadiene rubber plant.

Contractor Hyundai Engineering & Construction is to build “the largest mix-load steam cracker and utilities” in the Persian Gulf, TotalEnergies announced 24 June

The cracker facility, it stated, will have a nameplate capacity to produce 1,600 kilotonne per annum (ktpa) of ethylene and related industrial gases.

Maire Tecnimont will build two polyethylene units, with a nameplate capacity of 500ktpa, using its ‘advanced dual loop’ technology.

Set for commercial operation in 2027, the units will also include butadiene and aromatics extraction plants to produce ‘high value-added derivatives’, said TotalEnergies.

Downstream, the project – which is an expansion of the existing Satorp refinery in Jubail – will also house a 140ktpa elastomers facility, owned and operated by Aramco-owned Arlanxeo.

Sourcing butadiene feedstock from Satorp, the plant will produce neodymium-catalysed ultra-high cis-polybutadiene rubber (NdBR) as well as lithium butadiene rubber (LiBR).

EPC contracts for the synthetic rubber project are scheduled to be awarded in the second half of the year, Arlanxeo announced in May.

Construction work is expected to commence in 2024, followed by the start-up of commercial operations in 2027, according to the Aramco-owned producer.