Kuwait Petroleum Corp.’s newly formed subsidiary Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co. (KIPIC) has let a contract to W.R. Grace & Co. to provide technology licensing for a new polypropylene (PP) plant to be built at the petrochemical portion of KIPIC’s grassroots 615,000-b/d Al-Zour integrated refining complex under construction in southern Kuwait (OGJ Online, Aug. 5, 2016).
As part of the contract, Grace will license its proprietary Unipol PP process technology and supply its sixth-generation nonphthalate CONSISTA catalyst for the new plant, which will produce 940,000 tpy of PP, including homopolymer, random copolymer, and impact copolymer thermoplastic resins.
The PP unit is scheduled for startup in 2023, Grace said on Nov. 28.
The service provider did not disclose a value of the contract.
This latest contract follows KIPIC’s recent award of a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC to provide a range of process technologies for the already proposed expansion of the Al-Zour integrated complex (OGJ Online, Nov. 27, 2017).
The cornerstone of Kuwait’s Clean Fuels Project to upgrade its refineries to produce clean-burning fuels conforming to Euro 5 standards, Al-Zour’s first phase remains on schedule to be commissioned in 2018-19 (OGJ Online, Aug. 24, 2017).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
