NPC awarded Daelim of Korea and Chagalesh of Iran the contract to build an ethylbenzene (EB) plant in Assaluyeh, south of Iran for its subsidiary Pars Petrochemical Company.
South Korea's Daelim and Iranian firm Chagalesh were selected ahead of the other short listed consortium - Snamprogetti and Sazeh Consultants.
The contract covers basic and detailed engineering, procurement and supply of equipment, erection, construction, pre-commissioning, commissioning, startup and performance tests for the EB plant.
The 645,000 tonne/year capacity plant is scheduled to be completed in 23 months. It will consume 175,000 tonne/year of ethylene which will be supplied by No. 9 olefins project and 470,000 tonne/year of benzene from the nearby NPC's No 4 aromatics project.
Utilities for the EB plant will be provided by Mobin Petrochemical Co.





NPC's 35,000 tonne/year acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plant has been commissioned. The plant is part of the NPC's subsidiary Tabriz Petrochemical Complex. It is expected to start commercial production in July 2003. The plant is capable of producing 41 different grades of ABS.
Commissioning work is progressing in a 17,000 tonne/year 1-3 butadiene (BD) at the same location. The BD plant is also slated to become commercially operational in July 2003.
The ABS/BD projects will use 19,000 t/y of styrene, 8,000 t/y of acrylonitrile, 1,000 t/y of alfa methyl styrene and 34,000 t/y of C4 cut as feedstock. Styrene and C4 cut will be supplied by Tabriz complex. Acrylonitrile and alfa methyl styrene will be imported.
Iran's Sazeh and South Korea's Samsung were the engineering and procurement (EP) contractors. South Korea's Cheil provided technology, and basic engineering was carried out by Samsung.
BASF and Lurgi have provided technology for the butadiene extraction unit, which will produce 17,000 tonne/year 1-3 butadiene and over 15,000 tonne/year raffinate.
Lurgi of Germany and Chegalesh of Iran carried out basic engineering. The procurement contract was given to Chegalesh and Ecolaire. It will consume 34,000 tonne/year C4-cut which will be supplied by Tabriz Petrochemical's existing olefin plant.





An NGL recovery unit, NGL-1200, has been put in operation providing additional feed for NPC's subsidiary Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex (BIPC). Located in the vicinity of Gachsaran City, the plant is designed to process 260 MMSCFD associated rich sour gas producing 26,000 barrel per day of sweet NGL. The NGL produced at the plant is already being pipe-fed to BIPC while the lean gas is being injected into Gachsaran reservoir. With this new source of feedstock, the LPG and C5+ output at the natural fractionation (NF) plant of BIPC is expected to rise by some 20%.





NPC has issued invitation-to-bid (ITB) documents for its Ilam ethane-based cracker in the southern province of Ilam. The 318,000 tonne/year ethylene cracker, will produce 300,000 tonne/year of high-density polyethylene (hdPE). Feedstock will be sourced from a nearby gas refinery which is under construction. The cracker will use168,000 tonne/year of ethane, 300,000 tonne/year of C3+ and 150,000 tonne/year of C5 cuts.