Samsung Eng. wins $2.5 bn plant order from UAE

South Korea’s Samsung Engineering clinched a three trillion won contract to build a petrochemical plant from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Samsung Engineering disclosed Friday that it has received a letter of award (LOA) from Takreer, a refinery subsidiary of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), for a $2.47 billion ( 2.9 trillion won) carbon black and delayed coker plant. The plant will be sited within the Ruwais industrial complex in the UAE. It will comprise of 23 infrastructural facilities for 12 processing units, including a unit that produces 40,000 tons (t) of carbon black (main ingredient of rubber and other synthetic resins) per year and a unit that pyrolyzes 30,000 barrels of heavy residual oil per day. The plant will have a dual function of refining crude oil and recycling heavy residual oil to produce higher value-added products. Heavy residual oil tends to have low purity and thus little industrial application, being used primarily as ingredients for asphalt or fuel for power plants. Samsung’s newest UAE plant will raise the purity of heavy residual oil to the level of light oil, a common ingredient for a variety of synthetic resins. The order will be a turnkey project where Samsung takes charge of the design, procurement, construction, and test-run of the plant. The completion date is scheduled for December 2015.