KBR to Provide License & Design Package for Olefins Unit

KBR announced that it was awarded a License and Process Design Package contract for a new Olefins Recovery Unit in Yulin city, Shanxi Province, China.

The client owns an existing commercial plant of coal-to-olefins which was put into production in 2011 and is the first and largest coal-to-olefin project in the world using coal as the feedstock to produce polyethylene and polypropylene by coal gasification to methanol, then methanol to olefin (MTO), and then olefin polymerization. MTO opens up a new approach to the implementation of the energy substitution strategy and the founding of coal to the olefin industry.

This is the second MTO plant for the client with the capacity of 600 KTA of olefins (ethylene plus propylene). It is planned to be put into production in 2014.

“KBR has over 60 years experience of olefins producing and olefins recovery and we are pleased to continue the success with this new methanol to olefins project,” said John Derbyshire, president, KBR Technology. “This project will enable us to expand upon our past experience with our ACO™ and SUPERFLEX™ technology, which have the same Fluidized Catalytic Cracking process as MTO.”