The Red Sea National Petrochemical Co. has selected process technologies from W.R. Grace (Columbia, Md.) and Univation Technologies, LLC (Houston) for a major petrochemicals complex in Egypt.
Univation’s UNIPOL PE Process has been selected for two reactor lines. The two new reactor lines will be located in the Suez Canal Economic Zone in the Arab Republic of Egypt. Red Sea will be designing both plants with UNIPOL’s “full-density” capabilities, providing Red Sea the ability to produce both HDPE and LLDPE products in either reactor platform.
Grace has licensed its UNIPOL PP (polypropylene) technology to Red Sea for what will be the industry’s largest single PP reactor line with the greatest capacity to produce homopolymers and random copolymers.
Additionally, Red Sea recently signed a separate agreement with Linde Engineering for the steam cracker unit to produce ethylene feedstock for the two UNIPOL PE Reactor lines. Linde Engineering will also be responsible for the preparation of the Basic Design Engineering Package (BDEP) for the two lines. Univation Technologies and Linde Engineering have a cooperation agreement, which was formed to enable measurable capital investment synergies and overall lower operation cost derived from a high degree of integration of the UNIPOL™ PE Process with the cracker platform.
Luis Cirihal, president of Univation Technologies, commented, “We are very proud that Red Sea selected Univation’s UNIPOL PE Process for this impressive integrated project in Egypt. We look forward to contributing over 50 years of Univation’s polyethylene technology know-how to enable the successful completion of all key project phases ‒ including design, construction, commissioning, and start-up ‒ for these two world-scale plants.”
Laura Schwinn, President of Grace’s Specialty Catalysts business said, “This integrated complex will be the first of its kind in Africa and will significantly strengthen Red Sea Co.’s position in the region. We are excited to participate and deliver world scale polypropylene technology to Red Sea Co. and to partner with them to help satisfy their local and export market needs through leading process, catalyst, and product expertise.”