SABIC (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) has appointed specialist consultancy RVA Group (Hertfordshire, U.K.; www.rvagroup.org) to oversee the decommissioning, demolition and dismantling of 10 plants at its North Tees and Wilton sites.
With work having already commenced in the two locations, the multi-million pound program is expected to be completed in 2020.
The more immediate program involves the demolition of a Jetty, which will begin at the end of July and be cleared in eight weeks. Continued decommissioning support is being provided for a tank farm complex, and RVA is also finalizing the contractor selection process for the demolition of two Aromatics plants, with a proposed mobilization date of January 2018.
Elsewhere in Wilton, the 48-week demolition of SABIC’s Olefins 5 Furnaces and neighboring Butadiene 2 facility is already in progress and expected to be completed by the spring of 2018 and the close of 2017 respectively.
Home to some of the most iconic industrial structures in Teesside, these two sites have transformed raw oil refinery materials into an array of chemical products for almost half a century. SABIC’s acting Site Director Daren Smith explains: “With the two-year upgrade of our cracker plant now complete, this current multi-million pound clean-up signals the latest chapter in the creation of safe, efficient and state-of-the-art facilities that are fit for the future.”
The SABIC project is the biggest assignment the RVA team has seen undertaken in the U.K. Previously, RVA oversaw the three largest decommissioning and dismantling projects ever executed on Jurong Island, Singapore
“The portfolio of assets being cleared as part of this extensive program is vast,” elaborates RVA’s managing director Richard Vann. “We’re talking a range of world-scale chemical plants made up of complex structures, surrounded by live plant, in a multi-user operational site. This is an inherently demanding project but unparalleled planning has been invested to prepare for this phase of works.”
RVA was first appointed by SABIC in 2011 to review all redundant assets on the two sites. Drones were deployed for selected areas to meticulously inspect the condition of the various structures, before a rigorous, scheduled decommissioning strategy was developed to meet the operational, isolation and budgetary needs of the client.
RVA was appointed via competitive tender to act as the decommissioning consultant, project management resource and CDM Principal Designer, for this latest phase of the project.