MOSCOW (MRC) -- Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries Company (DRPIC) has announced the suspension of the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) work for its proposed Duqm Petrochemical Project (DPP), reported Oman News Agency (ONA).
The company seeks to assess the impact of COVID-19 on its future works.
The statement issued by the company said that DRPIC Board of Directors concluded that the suspension of FEED work of the project is in the interest of the company during a time of unprecedented global economic uncertainty due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, depressed demand, and highly volatile commodity prices.
The shareholders intend to reassess the project, taking into account the current challenging global market environment and the importance of seeking opportunities to enhance the value of the project.
The DPP constitutes the second phase of the integrated refineries and petrochemicals project, which the company plans to implement in the Special Economic Zone of Duqm, as part of the existing strategic partnership between OQ and Kuwait Petroleum International.
The statement emphasized that the construction work on Duqm Refinery continues according to the planned schedule, and the current overall progress stands at 72 per cent.
As MRC informed before, in late September 2020, Lummus Technology, LLC (Houston) announced that it had been awarded a contract for technology licensing, process design package, training and advisory services, and proprietary catalyst and equipment supply by DRPIC, a joint venture between OQ S.A.O.C (OQ) and Kuwait Petroleum Europe B.V. The contract is for the planned new petrochemical complex in Oman with multiple units, including the largest natural gas to liquids unit licensed by Lummus to Oman Oil Facilities Development Company LLC a wholly owned subsidiary of OQ with a capacity of 48 MMSCMD, one of the world’s largest ethylene units with 1,600,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) ethylene capacity, a butadiene extraction unit with 161,000 m.t./yr butadiene capacity, and a CDMtbe unit (145,000 m.t./yr of MTBE) and 1-Butene separation (51,000 m.t./yr of 1-butene capacity) licensed to DRPIC.
The units are part of the Duqm Petrochemicals Project, which is the second stage of DRPIC’s integrated refinery and petrochemical complex, and will be located at Duqm on the Arabian Sea coast of Oman, approximately 600 km south of Muscat. Other technology licensors on the Duqm Refinery project include OQ Chemicals and LyondellBasell.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia"s estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers" inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
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