Technip Awarded BP Contract For Extension Of PTA Plant

Technip has been awarded a services contract by BP for the extension of the production capacity of a purified terephthalic acid or PTA(1) plant located in Geel, Belgium. The contract, which covers the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) of the development, will be executed by a team integrated with the client.

Technip's operations and engineering center in Rome (Italy) will be in charge of the execution of the contract, which falls within the framework of the on-going alliance between BP and Technip in the PTA domain.

The capacity of the Geel plant will be increased by more than 350,000 tons/year, making the total PTA production capacity some 1.4 million tons/year. This increase will be achieved through debottlenecking(2) operations in the two existing units of the site, and by retrofitting the latest generation of BP's proprietary PTA technology. This new process offers the lowest capital cost per ton of PTA capacity of any current technology and lower variable costs significantly compared to conventional PTA technology. It is already being applied to the new PTA plants BP is building in Asia, such as the new 900,000 tons/year plant planned for Zhuhai, China.

The expansion of the PTA plant is scheduled to be fully operational in early 2008.

This contract follows the front end engineering design (FEED) contract successfully completed by Technip earlier in 2006 for the same plant.

(1) PTA (purified terephthalic acid) has the form of a white and crystalline powder primarily applied as raw material in the production of polyester fibers and plastic materials.

(2) Debottlenecking: modification of a facility in order to increase its production capacity.

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Posted 08/01/07

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