The CKPC joint venture of Kuwait’s state petchems firm PIC and Canada’s Pembina on 27 February awarded Spain’s Técnicas Reunidas a construction contract for a 550,000 t/y polypropylene (PP) plant, which will form part of a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) and PP complex to be built in Alberta, Canada. This follows CKPC’s award of a $2.1bn EPC contract for the PDH unit to US firms Fluor and Kiewit in January. The PDH unit will process 23,000 b/d of propane recovered from locally produced shale gas to provide propylene feedstock for the PP unit. The PDH/PP complex is expected to cost a total $3.45bn and is being built alongside Pembina’s Redwater fractionation complex for start-up in late 2023 (MEES, 10 January).
PIC is building a petchems portfolio in North America. Also in Alberta its MEGlobal joint venture with US firm Dow Chemical and Kuwaiti minority investors Boubyan and Qurain runs three ethylene glycol plants with a total 1.02mn t/y capacity. MEGlobal also recently started up a 750,000 t/y ethylene glycol plant in Freeport, Texas, processing ethylene made by Dow from locally produced shale gas (MEES, 18 October 2019). (CONTINUED - 189 WORDS)