(EnergyAsia, March 23 2012, Friday) — The Shaw Group Inc, a US-based global provider of engineering, construction, technology, fabrication, remediation and support services, said it has been awarded contracts to provide a process design package and technology licence for the addition of a 30,000 b/d deep catalytic cracking (DCC) unit for IRPC’s oil refinery in Thailand.
The upgrade project to the 215,000 b/d refinery in Rayong will maximise the production of polymer-grade propylene and recovery of polymer-grade ethylene to be used as feedstock for petrochemical derivative units at the same site.
Shaw said it also will function as the superlicensor for four additional supporting technologies provided by Axens. As superlicensor, Shaw has single point responsibility for execution and performance guarantees for these technologies.
James Glass, president of Shaw’s Energy & Chemicals Group, said:
“This solution will enable IRPC to move to the next level of heavy oil cracking and propylene production.
“As superlicensor, Shaw will optimise the integration of these technologies and maximise the production of propylene and other products for our client. This solution will enable IRPC to move to the next level of heavy oil cracking and propylene production.”
Shaw is the exclusive licensed provider of DCC technology outside of China, and together with the technology’s developer, Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing in China, has licensed a total of 16 DCC units.
The first DCC complex designed and engineered by Shaw was successfully commissioned in 1997 at this same site in Thailand, for Thai Petrochemical Industries, the previous name of IRPC.
Shaw said it has also provided its technology for the world’s largest DCC unit (producing in excess of 900,000 tons per year of propylene) for a grassroots high olefins fluid catalytic cracking project in the Middle East.