Page 15 - MEOG Week 18

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project near the port of Sohar is inching closer to launch.
Officials at state-owned OQ, formerly known as Oman Oil & Orpic Group, announced recently that a key component at the giant liwa Plastics complex had reached a “major milestone” in its construction.
The 1mn tonne per year (tpy) natural gas liquids (NGl) extraction plant at Fahud that will serve as the project’s midstream section completed its first test run last week, OQ officials said.
“Major milestone achieved on April
24 when Fahud NGl extraction plant successfully passed its 72-hour runs test, exceeding the contractual NGl recovery guaranteed figures,” a senior official posted on social media. “Hats off to the team that made this possible despite the extreme
constraints faced due to non-availability of critical vendors and tough [coronavirus] COvID-19 mobility restrictions of resources and materials!”
liwa Plastics is the crown jewel in OQ’s so-called series of “transformational projects,” aimed at extracting more value from Oman’s oil and gas by expanding its downstream industry.
Oman Oil & Orpic Group broke ground on the NGl extraction plant three years ago. The facility will extract NGls from the North Oman gas grid, providing feedstock for liwa Plastics’ main integrated complex some 300 km downstream at Sohar via pipeline. The pipeline was declared ready for launch in late February.
South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction and Japan’s Mitsui won an
engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract worth $700mn to build the extraction plant.
Work on the main facilities at Sohar is also nearing completion. The centrepiece is an 880,000 tpy mixed feed cracker designed to process 36,000 barrels per day (bpd) of light ends from the adjoining Suhar refinery, and 24,000 bpd of NGls from Fahud.
At full capacity, the complex will produce 1.1mn tpy of petrochemicals, including 800,000 tpy of polyethylene and 215,000 tpy of polypropylene. This will combine with OQ’s existing 300,000 tpy of polymer capacity at
the port. OQ has not offered guidance on the timeframe for liwa Plastics’ commissioning and production launch.
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Week 18 06•May•2020
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