Foster Wheeler Involved in Major Petrochem Project Ventures for Shell and ExxonMobil in Singapore

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ:FWLT) (Clinton, New Jersey) continue to build involvement in major projects undertaken in Singapore with recent contract awards for basic design engineering packages (BDEP’s) from Shell Eastern Petroleum (SEPL) (LSE:SHL) (London, UK) and from ExxonMobil Asia Pacific (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas).

For its new 750,000 tons per annum (tpa) ethylene oxide/mono-ethylene glycol (EO/MEG) plant, to be located at the Singapore Petrochemical Complex on Jurong Island, Shell has appointed Foster Wheeler and Mitsubishi Chemical Engineering (TSE:4188) (Tokyo, Japan) as design engineers for the project, which has been planned as a collaboration between Shell and the Singapore Economic Development Board. The plant is scheduled for completion in 2009.

Foster Wheeler Energy, Limited (FWEL) (Reading, United Kingdom) is scheduled to provide engineering, procurement and construction (E+P+C) management after final investment decisions for the project are made later this year.

"The new MEG plant will use Shell’s OMEGA technology, which incorporates Shell’s proprietary EO technology for the front-end ethylene oxide unit and catalytic glycol production technology developed by Mitsubishi Chemical for the glycol production unit," said Bill Rothwell, General Manager of Ethylene Oxide/Glycols for Shell Chemical.

The OMEGA process is claimed to be the most efficient technology currently available to convert ethylene into MEG. Shell Global Solutions has exclusive rights to license this technology to third parties.

The MEG plant will use feedstock from Shell’s planned world-scale ethylene cracker located on Bukom Island, adjacent to Jurong Island, which is scheduled for completion in 2009. Foster Wheeler Asia Pacific has been awarded the contract for the BDEP packages for modifications to the Bukom refinery. These modifications are a key aspect of the overall project allowing the integration of the ethylene cracker complex to the refinery to capture the benefits of oil-chemicals integration. Earlier, Shell had announced the award of separate contracts for the BEDP packages for the ethylene cracker complex on Bukom to a joint venture between ABB Lummus Global (NYSE:ABB ) (Zurich, Switzerland) and Toyo Engineering Corporation (TSE:6330 ) (Tokyo, Japan)

"As Foster Wheeler was involved in the execution of a similar EO/MEG plant in our joint venture complex in China, we believe that we will be able to benefit from the expertise and lessons learned from for the Singapore project," said Fang Yea Yee, SEPL’s general manager for the project.

Shell said that the cracker and the MEG plan form a part of their overall Singapore investment program and are in line with the company’s overall strategy of more upstream and profitable downstream. The integrated refining and petrochemicals complex will maximize potential site and location benefits to contribute to the profitability of Shell’s downstream business through maximum integration and optimal supply and market logistics.

Planning is reported to be at an advanced stage for ExxonMobil’s second steam-cracking train, the Singapore Parallel Train (SPT), at its existing Singapore chemical plant and refinery site. The project scope includes a world-scale steam cracker and associated derivative units including new world-scale polyethylene, polypropylene and specialty elastomers plants, an aromatics extraction unit and oxo-alcohol expansion.

When it stated operations in 2001, the chemical plant represented ExxonMobil’s single largest investment in the world. It operates adjacent to the company’s 605,000 barrels per day refinery.

A project services coordination contract for the project has been awarded to a team of Foster Wheeler and Worley Parsons (Sydney, Australia). The team will also undertake the front-end engineering design and the E+P+C contract for more facilities if the project proceeds to the next stage.

The new cracker will be integrated with an ethylene plant that will have a capacity exceeding 900,000 tons per annum after the completion of a 75,000 tons per annum expansion in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Foster Wheeler, with a 30 year project delivery track record in Singapore, will support work on the project from staff resources at the their offices in U.K., Houston and Singapore. Contract values were not disclosed at this stage.

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