Repsol Awards $46 Million Contract to Technip for Cracker Furnaces in Portugal

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Technip (OTC:TKPPY) (Paris) has been awarded a $46 million lump-sum turnkey contract from Repsol Polimeros S.A. (Sines, Portugal), a subsidiary of Repsol YPF S.A. (NYSE:REP) (Madrid, Spain). Technip will supply two furnaces for an existing steamcracker in Sines that will use steam to crack hydrocarbon molecules for ethylene production.

The new furnaces will be based on Technip's proprietary GK6 technology, which allows the furnaces to operate on a range of feedstock -- from naphtha to heavy oils -- with a very high selectivity and a long on-stream time. The GK6 technology is used in all Technip steamcracking units, operating on liquid feedstock, such as in upgrading existing furnaces. The technology will expand the Repsol plant's capacity by 160,000 tons. The furnaces are scheduled to be complete in 2010.

Repsol YPF owns five refineries in Spain, three in Argentina and one in Peru, with a total installed capacity of 1.16 million barrels per day (BBL/d). The company holds shares of one refinery Argentina and two in Brazil for an overall refinery capacity of 1.23 million BBL/d. Repsol YPF has been developing an investment programme in its Spanish refineries since 2001 to adapt its production structure to the European Union's new quality specifications for 2005-09. Consequently, several units have been brought into operation, including a hydrocracking unit at the Tarragona refinery in 2002; a mild hydrocracking unit in the Puertollano refinery in mid-2004; a hydrotreatment unit at the Coruna refinery run by Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas S.A. (FCC) in 2005; an isomerisation unit in Tarragona; a FCC gas sulphur removal plant in Bilbao; and finally a sulphur removal unit in mid-2006 for medium distilled liquids at the Bilbao refinery.

In 2007, Repsol YPF refineries processed about 1.34 million BBL/d of crude oil, representing a 1.4% increase over 2006. Of this amount, 25% was obtained through the company's own production, and the rest was obtained through contracts and the international markets.

The Technip-Repsol cracker contract in Sines covers basic and detailed engineering, procurement and supply of materials, construction, pre-commissioning and commissioning. Technip's operating center in Zoetermeer (The Netherlands) will execute the contract.

Technip, a world leader in ethylene-production facilities, is present in five continents in three segments of activity: subsea (development of subsea oil and gas fields), offshore (oil and gas production platforms) and onshore (onshore facilities for the production, transformation and transport of oil and gas, and petrochemicals).

View Project Report - 82100030 82100031 82100032 82100058

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.