Takamul to call for tender Sohar PTA and PET projects
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The joint venture Oman International Petrochemical Industry Company (OIPIC) between the State-owned companies Takamul Investment Company (Takamul), Oman Oil Company (OOC) and the South Korean LG Corporation (LG) is preparing the call for tender to invite engineering companies to bid for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) unit and a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) unit in the proposed petrochemical complex in Sohar.
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In December 2012, Oman Oil and LG established a joint venture to build a world-scale petrochemical complex in Sohar whereas the working interests were shared:
- 70% Oman Oil the operator
- 30% LG
This decision was a major step change in Oman strategy with an economy so far depending on oil and gas exploration, production and exportation.
Benchmarking Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman decided to reduce its reliance on oil and gas exportation in developing a petrochemical industry.
Since the signature of the Oman Oil and LG joint venture in 2012, the first invitation to bid (ITB) were expected in 2013 but the project was moving slowly because of the lack of feedstock, leading to postpone the qualification process and the EPC contracts tendering.
With major upstream projects moving ahead, Oman Oil is now getting confident to built enough oil and gas production capacity to feed its Sohar petrochemical complex.
WorleyParsons won Sohar PTA – PET PMC contract
Established in 2006 as the Oman Oil downstream arm, Takamul has been involved in Sohar Petrochemical complex project so that the working interests in OIPIC are actually distributed:
- Takamul 20% the operator
- Oman Oil 50%
- LG 30%
In Sohar Petrochemical complex, Takamul and its partners prioritized the production of basic polymers in order to supply the domestic market with the fundamental materials to support the daily consumption in the Sultanate, such as plastic bottles, packaging, home plastic goods, polyester.
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In this perspective Takamul begins with the construction of:
- Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) unit
- Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) unit
- Purified isophthalic acid (PIA) unit
Although the PIA is to be combined with the PTA to produce PET, this unit is very specific, thus is being developed separately from the PTA and PET units.
From the front end engineering and design (FEED) being completed, the Sohar Petrochemical complex should have the following production capacities:
- 1.1 million tonnes per year (t/y) of PTA
- 500,000 t/y of PET
- 100,000 t/y of PIA
On the current estimations, the construction of Sohar PTA and PET production units should require $600 million capital expenditure.
With WorleyParsons appointed as project management consultant, Takamul, Oman Oil and LG are expecting to award the EPC contracts by the end of 2015 in order to start production by 2018.
For more information about oil and gas and petrochemical projects go to Project Smart Explorer