Indorama takes seat in Tacaamol Al-Gharbia Complex
The Thai chemical company Indorama Ventures (Indorama) and the local Abu Dhabi National Chemicals Corporation (ChemaWEyaat) signed an agreement to establish the joint venture Abu Dhabi Chemicals Integration Company (Tacaamol) to design and build the first phase of the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al Gharbia (MCAG) project in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, along the boarder of Saudi Arabia.
For some years, the Emirates of Abu Dhabi is working to balance its upstream activities with the added value generated by the downstream sector in expanding its petrochemicals capacities.
In 2008, Abu Dhabi Emir established ChemaWEyaat as a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the Abu Dhabi Investment Council and the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) in order to channelize the best resources from the upstream side toward the petrochemical sector.
At that time Abu Dhabi was targeting to invest up to $25 billion capital expenditure in the giant Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia Master Planning project.
As Tacaamol means integration, Abu Dhabi has conceived the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia Master Planning project as an integrated petrochemical complex similar to Sadara in Saudi Arabia.
If integration favors the process optimization and related costs, it also adds complexity in the design and construction pushing forward the expected date of first production.
So ADNOC and IPIC decided to split the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia Master Planning project in three phases.
As a first phase, the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia (MCAG) project should require $10 billion capital expenditure.
This first phase MCAG will itself be also phased up in a manageable way and in respect with the different partnerships required by ChemaWEyaat to licence the best processes with international chemical companies.
In that respect the agreement signed between Indorama and ChemaWEyaat to create the joint venture Tacaamol is providing the first stone to the MCAG project.
Foster Wheeler won PMC for Tacaamol Aromatics
In this Tacaamol joint venture, ChemaWEyaat and Indorama will share the working interests such as:
- ChemaWEyaat 51% is the operator
- Indorama 49%
For this first phase of the MCAG project, ChemaWEyaat and Indorama intends to build through their Tacaamol joint venture an aromatics plant including:
- 1.4 million tonnes per year (t/y of paraxylene (PX)
- 500,000 t/y of benzene.
- Petrochemicals tank farm
- Export jetty
In 2012, ChemaWEyaat had selected Foster Wheeler to provide the project management consultancy (PMC) services for the MCAG project.
In September 2013, ChemaWEyaat had mandated CH2M Hill to carry out the front end engineering and design (FEED) work of the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia project.
With Indorama joint venture, ChemaWEyaat is partnering with a polyester global leader producing PET and PTA all over the world.
ChemaWEyaat and Indorama are planning to invest $1 billion capital expenditure in this Tacaamol Aromatics project as a first phase of the Madeenat ChemaWEyaat Al-Gharbia (MCAG) project to come on stream in 2020.