Compared with its neighbours, Oman’s crude oil reserves are small: a twentieth of the United Arab Emirates’ to the north, and about 2% of big neighbour Saudi Arabia, according to 2003 estimates from BP. Still, its estimated reserves of 5.5bn barrels amount to about a third of the crude in the North Sea fields, Europe’s largest supply.
Instead of producing yet more fuel oil, the Sohar Refinery Project in Sohar, Oman, currently under construction, will be used for a new plastic processing plant being built nearby. The plant will make polypropylene, a versatile plastic.
The Omani government holds an 80% stake in the Sohar Refinery Company. The remaining 20% is held by the Oman Oil Company.
In May 2003 Japan’s JGC/Chiyoda won the RO339.3m ($875m) engineering, procurement and construction contract. JGC also created the engineering design for the project. ABB Lummus is the project management consultant.
Consolidated Contractors Company (Oman) has been appointed subcontractor for all the process and utilities work. It has planned, engineered, and performed all the heavy lifts.
It has brought in three massive cranes for lifting process equipment including one of the world’s largest – the 1,600t capacity PTC containerised platform twin-ring lattice-boom, the 1,000t Demag CC4800 (both owned by Mammoet), and the 400t Demag CC2400 (jointly owned). These three cranes alone are working on 114 lifts.
In all, more than 1,000 pieces of equipment weighing a total of 16,000t need lifting, according to Maher Kabbani, heavy lift manager at CCC Oman.
On 6 March, CCC lifted the largest single load of the entire project, the 1,050t regenerator. The unit measures 45m long and 16.5m in diameter. The PTC, rigged with 69m of main boom and 33m of jib, handled the heavy lifting. The CC4800 S3 rigged with 78m boom in SSL configuration picked up the tail of the regenerator.
On 3 February, CCC lifted the 700t splitter. The PTC took the main weight of the splitter, a 79m long cylinder that is 6.5m wide. The PTC sat on driven piles. The CC2400, rigged with 30m boom in SSL configuration, picked up the tail.
The other major lift – a 600t reactor that is 40m long and 8.7m wide – will be installed on top of a 62m high structure in September.
CCC’s other large cranes on site include a 200t American 225, 165t American 9299, 125t American 9260, and 100t Grove GMK 5100.
As of mid-February, 280 units weighing 6,000t in total had been lifted. CCC has been on site for 16 months, and will remain for another 12 months.
Once started up in mid-2006, the refinery will process a mixture of crude and long residue from Oman’s Mina Al Fahal refinery. It is expected to have a capacity of more than 100,000 barrels per day for processing crude and a residue fluid catalytic cracking unit with capacity of more than 75,000 barrels per day. The refinery will supply the materials to produce 327,000t of polypropylene feedstock a year.