Borouge says it has awarded a US$169 million (Dh620.68m) contract to Hyundai Engineering and Construction of South Korea to build a plant in Abu Dhabi to make speciality plastics used to coat energy cables.
The deal includes the construction of a plant to produce special types of polythene at the Borouge petrochemical complex in Ruwais. Borouge is the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's (Adnoc) petrochemicals subsidiary.
With an annual capacity of 80,000 tonnes, the unit is expected to add value to the company's existing polythene plant, Borouge said. It will enable the company to make plastics products for low and high-voltage electric cables.
This is the final major contract to be awarded for the huge Borouge 3 expansion project under way at Ruwais, in Abu Dhabi's western region.
Hyundai is also providing the utilities and off-site facilities for the project.
"When fully operational in mid-2014, Borouge 3 will more than double the plant's annual capacity to 4.5 million tonnes and create the largest integrated polyolefins plant in the world," the company said yesterday.
Polyolefins include widely used plastics such as polythene and synthetic fibres such as polypropylene.
Borouge is a joint venture between Adnoc and Borealis, an Austrian chemicals and plastics venture in which Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) is a partner.
Borealis and Borouge aim to be leading long-term suppliers of polymers to the global wire and cable infrastructure market.
In a separate development yesterday, Linde Group, the German industrial gases company, said it had started talks with Borouge about building a fourth ethane cracker in Ruwais.
Ethane crackers - equipment potentially costing about $1.3 billion each - are at the heart of chemicals plants that use feedstock derived from natural gas.
Linde is also in talks with Qatar to build another ethane cracker, as that emirate expands its gas-based chemicals sector.
[ tcarlisle@thenational.ae ]
