Alujain lets contract for new petrochemical project at Yanbu

Alujain Corp. subsidiary Alujain National Industrial Co. (LNIC) has let a contract to Samsung Engineering Co. Ltd. to provide front-end engineering and design (FEED) for new units to be installed as part of integrated propane dehydrogenation (PDH) and polypropylene (PP) project at Yanbu Industrial City in western Saudi Arabia’s Medina province.

Under the contract awarded on Sept. 27, Samsung Engineering will deliver FEED on a 600,000-tonne/year (tpy) PDH plant and 500,000-tpy PP plant, the service provider said.

Samsung Engineering’s scope of delivery also covers FEED services for related utilities and offsites required for the project. Valued at $19.428 million, the newly awarded contract follows Samsung Engineering’s previous completion of preliminary FEED work for the PDH-PP project, the company said.

Upon completing execution of the project’s FEED phase in May 2024, Samsung Engineering said it plans to secure the main engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the integrated plant.

Additional project details

Award of FEED for the PDH-PP project follows LNIC’s earlier licensing of technologies for the proposed development.

In early May, LNIC let a contract to Lummus Technology LLC for licensing of its proprietary C₃ CATOFIN process technology for the planned PDH unit, which will produce propylene as feedstock for the planned PP unit, according to a May 10 release from the service provider.

On May 30, LyondellBasell Industries Holdings BV confirmed it received a contract from LNIC to deliver licensing of its proprietary Spherizone process technology, as well as supply of its proprietary Avant ZN catalyst, for the project’s new PP unit.

LyondellBasell said LNIC’s PDH-PP project will be built adjacent to fellow Alujain subsidiary National Petrochemical Industrial Co.’s (NatPet) existing 400,000-tpy PDH-PP plant at Yanbu, which is equipped with the service provider’s proprietary Spheripol PP process technology.

In an early November 2022 notice to investors, Alujain said the new PDH-PP project, once completed, will produce more than 600,000 tpy of PP, PP compounds, and specialized construction materials from PP derivatives, as well as about 25,000 tpy salable hydrogen.

LNIC’s new project will also include a grid for integrating its new units with NatPet’s existing units to increase reliability, efficiency, and profitability of the two subsidiaries.

Alujain, which estimated total cost of the LNIC project at about $2 billion, said it expects the new PDH-PP plant to enter operation during first-half 2026.