Equate Petrochemical completes plant's turnaround process

Equate Petrochemical Company - a JV between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), Dow Chemical, Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC) – has announced the successful completion of its plants’ turnaround (TA) and the first phase of the polyethylene plant debottlenecking project.
 
With the participation of over 10,000 employees and contractors, Equate has realised the first of its kind international achievement by completing all operations within a record-time for petrochemical plants based on global standards.
 
All units were shutdown from November 20, 2014 to December 20, 2014, and the units resumed their normal operations on December 23, 2014.
 
The TA is a major activity that takes place once every eight years for a 30-day shutdown. All matters are thoroughly planned for technical experts to conduct comprehensive maintenance of a number of industrial units, which include ethylene, polyethylene, ethylene glycol and utilities, while ensuring absolute abidance by international best practices.
 
As a global achievement, this TA is a distinguished milestone for Equate and its employees, as it also has a significant strategic role in determining the direction of Equate’s future critical projects. In addition, during the TA, Equate executed the first phase of its polyethylene debottlenecking project. Equate’s current capacity of polyethylene is 825,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTPA), and will reach almost 1 million MTPA once the debottlenecking project is completed during 2016.
 
Mohammad Husain, president and CEO, Equate, said, “This excellent achievement by the individual executing the TA deserves utmost appreciation and gratitude. On behalf of Equate, it gives me great pleasure to extend utmost gratefulness for their efforts, dedication and patience to realise such a distinguished milestone in the company’s history.”