NPC has awarded Technip-Coflexip of France the engineering, procurement and construction contract for a low-density polyethylene (ldPE) plant. The 300,000 tonne/year plant is part of the NPC's No. 9 olefins complex which is being implemented by NPC subsidiary Pars Petrochemical Co. (PPC) at Assaluyeh. The Iranian company Nargan is Technip-Coflexip's partner in the project.
The contract calls for basic and detailed engineering, procurement of equipment, construction and erection, mechanical completion, pre-commissioning technical services, commissioning and start-up of the unit. It will use Stamicarbon technology which is based on Clean Tubular Reactor Technology and will produce ldPE by means of high-pressure polymerization.



The plant will consume ethylene as its feed which will be supplied by Pars 1m tonne/year ethane cracker.
The project is expected to take 34 months to complete once the contract comes into force. It will be executed through a future joint venture between NPC/PPC, Sasol and DSM.



NPC broke ground on 22 October for a new cracker and derivative units in the western province of Ilam. The complex will be built in an eighty-hectare area in the vicinity of Ilam gas refinery, which is already under construction.
The cracker will use as feed 96,000 tonne/year of ethane and 325,000 tonne/year of C3 cut and heavy ends. The gas refinery will feed the facility. Construction work for the refinery started in mid 2001.
Ilam cracker is slated to produce 202,000-t/y of ethylene, 300,000-t/y of high-density polyethylene (hdPE) and 50,000-t/y of polypropylene, 33,000-t/y of mixed C4 cut, 46,000-t/y of pyrolysis gasoline and 10,000-t/y of fuel oil.
The facility would help develop the downstream industry and create job opportunities in the province. The value of its annual output is expected to be $170m.
A workforce of 2500 people will be engaged to carry out the project while some 500 personnel will operate the facility.
Iran's Majlis (parliament) speaker, Hojat-ol-Islam Mahdi Karubi attended the project's groundbreaking ceremony.
NPC President, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said bid documents were being prepared for the engineering and procurement contract. NPC is expected to invite bids for the project in the near future. The project is due to be commissioned in 2006.





Khorasan Petrochemical Company (KHPC), an NPC subsidiary, is expected to bring its 20,000 tonne/year crystal melamine project onstream by mid 2003.
The 1.4-hectare project is located at KHPC's complex in the city of Bojnourd in northeast of Iran. KHPC will supply the plant's required feedstock, which includes 12,240 tonne/year of ammonia and 70,000 tonne/year of urea.
The plant is based on Italy's Eurotecnica license. Eurotecnica and Nargan of Iran are providing detailed and basic engineering as well as procurement services for the project.Fifty percent of the plant's output is earmarked for export while the remaining fifty percent is consumed by local downstream industries.
KHPC will also supply the plant's required utilities and offsite services including natural gas, power, steam and cooling water. The project's overall progress is over 78%. Detailed engineering is 99% complete while procurement and delivery of equipment, machinery and materials are 98% complete.





Construction work is in progress for NPC's isocyanates project. The project is being implemented by Karoon Petrochemical Co. a joint venture between NPC and Hansa Chemie of Germany and Sweden's Chematur Engineering. NPC holds a 40% stake in the venture with the other two partners holding 30% each. The plant will produce 80,000 tonne/year of isocyanates.
The project will be built in two phases. The first phase will be constructed in 34 months while the second phase is expected to be completed in 48 months. Basic engineering work for the first phase has been finished. Chematur will provide technology for both phases. NPC plants at Bandar Imam will provide the project's required feedstock.
The project's overall progress is 24.45% consisting of 86.2% of engineering and design, 13.1% of the procurement and material supply and 4.6% of construction and erection work completed so far.
Implementation activities including site preparation activities are underway. So far, site leveling and compaction is 60% complete, preparation of access roads is 93% complete, fencing has reached 79% progress, pile precasting has reached 84% progress and piling is 60% complete.

NPC subsidiary Pars Petrochemical Co. and Spanish engineering company Intecsa Uhde Industrial signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to define execution procedures for immediate start of an offsite facility for which they, together with the Iranian engineering company Sazeh, had earlier signed an engineering and procurement (EP) contract (NPC News Bulletin, #29-30).
Pars is responsible for constructing and operating the NPC's olefins No. 9 facility in Assaluyeh.
The MOU was signed on 30th October 2002 in Madrid on the sidelines of an official visit by the Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami to Spain.
The EP contract calls for basic design, detailed engineering, procurement and supply of equipment for the offsite facilities and utilities distribution network for the project.
Offsite facilities shall incorporate provision of pumps for loading of various olefins No. 9 products like propane, butane, toluene and styrene monomer as well as unloading of benzene, propylene and hexene-1 and their storage for which double-walled storage tanks and spheres are to be built.
Mobin centralized utility complex will provide the olefin No. 9 utilities requirements, but, distribution of utilities to various units shall be done through this contract. Flares for C2 recovery and ethane cracker are also within the scope of the offsite contract.