The French contractor Technip has been awarded a contract to provide engineering and equipment for an ethylene cracking furnace at a petrochemicals plant in Saudi Arabia.
The contract is from CTCI, a Taipei-based EPC company with annual revenues of 7.6 billion Taiwanese dollars (Dh859.6m). CTCI won a US$94.5m contract from Saudi Kayan in February to build the cracker in Jubail Industrial City in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.
Saudi Kayan is looking to boost capacity at the plant to produce 93,000 tonnes of ethylene a year.
Technip said that it would use proprietary furnace technology that offers high-capacity gas cracking capability. The work will be carried out at Technip’s unit at Milton Keynes in the UK.
Stan Knez, the president of Stone & Webster — a process technology business acquired by Technip in 2012, said: “As the largest ethylene licenser and contractor, Technip is pleased that our furnace technology was selected for this important ethylene expansion project.
“The technology has an outstanding track record with more than 60 installations for gas cracking in the last decade.”
The project will be completed in the second half of next year.
Last year, Technip reported a 14 per cent increase in revenue to €12.2bn, but net profit plunged by 90 per cent to €45.1m, mainly due to restructuring costs.
Saudi Kayan is a shareholder in the $20bn Sadara Chemical Complex, which is being built in Jubail Industrial City. Work on the project, which is the biggest chemical complex to be built in a single phase, is almost complete. It has been created to help diversify the kingdom’s economy.
Chemicals produced at Sadara will feed a new, 12 square kilometre industrial park, PlasChem Park, where a range of products from paints and coatings to pharmaceuticals, soaps and plastic packaging will be produced. According to the Deloitte Powers of Construction report on Wednesday, of the region’s $5 trillion worth of projects in the “pre-execution” phase – that is construction work that is yet to start – 5.5 per cent are in the chemicals market.
Cynthia Corby, the leader of Deloitte’s Middle East construction team, said that despite a 14 per cent decline in anticipated contract awards this year to $160bn, governments still “need to diversify income streams and prioritise their spending”.
mfahy@thenational.ae
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Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
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