Abu Dhabi National Chemicals Company (Chemaweyaat) has put its planned Tacaamol aromatics project at Al-Gharbia back on track with the award of a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract to US firm CH2M Hill. The Tacaamol aromatics plant is intended to convert 3mn tons/year of heavy and medium naphtha from the Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company (Takreer) refinery at Ruwais (MEES, 9 November 2012) into benzene, paraxylene and mixed xylenes.

MEES understands that the scope of the FEED includes the naphtha processing units and products handling facilities, but not the aromatics unit. This will be the subject of a separate FEED project. Chemawayaat said in 2010 that Tacaamol Phase 1 would involve the design and construction of the world’s largest reformer to date, with a capacity of about 70,000 b/d. An integrated BTX unit would produce benzene, toluene, paraxylene, orthoxylene and metaxylene, as well as light naphtha and LPG for export. (CONTINUED - 548 WORDS)