AMEC wins China Contract for Carbon Fibre Plant

AMEC has been awarded a $25 million contract by China Worldbest Group to engineer and construct a polyacrylonitrile and carbon fibre production plant in Bengbu, Anhui province, eastern China. Engineering design will be carried out at AMEC offices in Shanghai and the UK, with completion of the project scheduled for February 2005.

AMEC, working with its technology partner, Applied Composite Engineering Ltd, will undertake the engineering, procurement, project management, construction supervision and commissioning of what will be the first combined polyacrylonitrile and carbon fibre plant to be built in China. The contract is the third major process engineering contract awarded to AMEC in China in the last 12 months.

China is a major user of carbon fibre from which tennis rackets, fishing rods, bicycles and other sporting goods are manufactured. Carbon Fibre composite materials are growing in importance in many industrial applications, including automobiles, offshore oil developments and construction. In 2002 over 3000 tonnes of carbon fibre were imported to China.

The plant will produce polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor, which is then converted into carbon fibre yarn. The plant comprises raw material storage and preparation, batch polymerization processing, by the conversion of acrylonitrile monomer into polyacrylonitrile. The polymerized product is spun into a yarn and further processed and dried to form PAN precursor. The PAN fibre is collected on to bobbins and further processed by the application of increased levels of heating in a controlled atmosphere to form the final carbon fibre product.

AMEC’s client China Worldbest Group Company Ltd is the largest pharmaceutical and textile group in China, with 34 subsidiaries and affiliates in China and overseas. It employs 50,000 people and had sales revenues of over 32 billion RMB during 2002.

Added to site on 8/07/03

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