Says 1500km ethylene pipeline project "unique"




Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami broke the ground for a 300,000 tonne/year low-density polyethylene project in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Iran's western Kurdestan province. The plant will take 4 years to complete. It will use 303,000 tonnes of ethylene and 5,000 tonnes of propylene as raw materials per year. The required ethylene feedstock will be supplied through a 1500km pipeline which extends from the Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. The project, to be built in an area of 143 hectares, will create 200 job opportunities playing a direct role in developing downstream industries in the region. The ethylene pipeline will run from Assaluyeh to Gachsaran, Khoramabad, Kermanshah, Sanandaj and Mahabad along the western provinces of Iran. Mahabad is now the terminus of the project. A local producer will supply the pipes. In addition to the ldPE plant in Sanandaj, at least seven other petrochemical facilities, will be built along the course of the pipeline. These plants include an ethylene glycol (EG) and an ethylene oxide (EO) plant in Kohgiloyeh-va-Boyerahmad province, a swing linear low-density polyethyelen (lldPE)/high-density polyethylene (hdPE) complex and a butane-1 plant in Lorestan province, a high-density polyethylene (hdPE) facility in Kermanshah province and a linear low-density polyethylene (lldPE)/high-density polyethylene (hdPE) facility plus a butane-1 plant in Western Azarbaijan province. Speaking at the ground breaking ceremony, President Khatami said the construction of the Assaluyeh-Mahabad ethylene pipeline and the planned petrochemical facilities to be built along its course, would have far-reaching benefits stimulating growth in the western provinces. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will fully finance the ethylene pipeline project. President Khatami added that the petrochemical plants would be developed with the participation of the private sector.





Implementation work has officially begun for the construction of the ethyl benzene plant of the NPC subsidiary Pars Petrochemical Co. (PPC) in Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone.
PPC broke ground on the project in a ceremony attended by the NPC President, M. R. Nematzadeh, Mr. Baek Ki-moon, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Tehran and Yong Koo Lee, President and CEO of Daelim Industrial Co.
The plant is licensed by Polimeri Europa of Italy. It has a capacity of 645,000 tonne/year. The engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning activities are being done in the framework of an EPCC contract that PPC awarded to the consortium of Chagalesh Consulting Engineers of Iran and Daelim Industrial Company of the Republic of Korea. The contract was signed on May 20, 2003. An Early Work Agreement was created on June 23, 2003 with the contractors to help the project go forward for a period of six months. This agreement entered force on August 4, 2003 under which early work activities were kicked off. The main financing arrangement became effective on July 21, 2004. The contractual completion period is 20 months from the effective date.








Pars Petrochemical Complex is expected to be completed by March 2006. The complex is being developed by the NPC subsidiary, Pars Petrochemical Co., at Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh, south of Iran. The facility consists of a C2+ recovery and fractionation plant, a 645,000 tonne/year ethyl benzene unit, a 600,000 tonne/year styrene monomer plant and a 250,000 tonne/year polystyrene unit. Pars will also produce 1.6m tonne/year of ethane, 980,000 tonne/year of propane, 570,000 tonne/year of butane, 86,000 tonne/year of mixed C5+, 14,000 tonne/year of toluene and 6,000 tonne/year of benzene. It will consume 19,782,000 tonne/year of natural gas which will be sourced from the South Pars gas field, 470,000 tonne/year of benzene supplied by Borzuyeh and Buali Sina companies and 175,000 tonne/year of ethylene supplied by the nearby Arya Sasol Petrochemical Co.



Work is progressing at full speed on Arya Sasol polymer project, also known as 9th olefin plant, in the Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh, south of Iran. The project is being constructed and will be operated by Arya Sasol Polymer Co., a 50:50 joint venture between NPC and Sasol. The facility will produce 1,000,000 tonne/year of ethylene of which 600,000 will be for captive use and the remaining 400,000 will be final product; 300,000 tonne/year of medium-density/high-density polyethylene (mdPE/hdPE); 300,000 tonne/year of low-density polyethylene (ldPE), and 90,000 tonne/year of C3 and above. It will use 1.267m tonne/year of ethane as feed which will be sourced by the neighboring Pars Petrochemical Co. Arya Sasol's ethylene plant will provide feed for the downstream plastic and styrene units. The surplus ethylene will be earmarked for export. The plant's basic and detailed engineering work as well as equipment and material delivery have been completed. Construction work is already 75% complete. In the ldPE unit, process design has been completed and package is delivered. Basic engineering has also finished. Detailed engineering and procurement work is 82% complete. Material delivery is in progress while civil construction has already begun. The process design for the mdPE/hdPE plant has been completed and the respective package is delivered. The plant's detailed engineering work and procurement services are 81% complete. Civil construction activities have started at the site. The engineering work for the offsite project is almost finished. The plant will supply utilities to the ethylene cracker, mdPE/hdPE, ldPE of Arya Sasol and ethyle benzene and styrene monomer of Pars Petrochemical Co. Procurement services have registered 91% progress. Material delivery is in progress and civil construction work has already started.




NPC will soon issue invitation-to-bid (ITB) documents to interested contractors for its worldscale No. 12 olefins project, which will be built at the Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. The complex will consist of the world's biggest ethylene cracker with a capacity of 1.9m tonne/year. Planned capacities downstream of the complex include 300,000 tonne/year of high-density polyethylene (hdPE)/linear low-density polyethylene (lldPE), 640,000 tonne/year of monoethylene glycol (MEG), 70,000 tonne/year of diethylene glycol (DEG), 300,000 tonne/year of polypropylene (PP), 388,000 tonne/year of benzene, 196,000 tonne/year of toluene, 128,000 tonne/year of mixed xylene, 545,000 tonne/year of excess propylene, 277,000 tonne/year of butadiene and 845,000 tonne/year of fuel oil.