IRPC Public Company Limited or IRPC (Company) is the formal Thai Petrochemical Industry Public Company Limited, known as “TPI”.
IRPC and its subsidiaries are currently the first fully integrated petrochemical complex in Southeast Asia. IRPC’s plants are located in an industrial area in Rayong Province, Thailand, with facilities to support the businesses such as deep sea port, tank farm and power plant.
The project to make propylene derivatives is not part of IRPC’s Phoenix programme, a regional integrated petrochemical and refinery project worth $1.3 billion.
Its complex consists of an upstream, an oil refinery unit and a downstream petrochemical production. The company’s oil refinery unit has the total capacity of 215,000 b/d, accounting for 21% of the country’s total refining capacity.of the revamping and extension of IRPC refinery in Rayong .
Now IRPC is working on the extension to increase the Rayong capacities in by:
- 260 000 t/y of Propylene
- 100 000 t/y of Polypropylene (PE)
and to build a 30 000 t/y of Deep Catalytic Cracking (DCC) to maximize the production of polymer-grade Propylene and the recovery of polymer-grade Ethyelene.
The Shaw Group has won the contract to provide the process package design and technology license for the (DCC) unit which will turn long residue – the residue that remains after the atmospheric distillation of crude oil – into propylene.
As superlicensor, Shaw will optimize the integration of these technologies and maximize the production of propylene and other products.
This solution will enable IRPC to move to the next level of heavy oil cracking and propylene production.
The project’s capital expenditure is $800 million to $900 million.
Bid submissions for the project contractor will be closed in June 2012, and the contractor is expected to start construction in the third quarter.
The DCC project will increase propylene production capacity by 300,000 tonnes per year
Currently, IRPC has annual propylene capacity of 240,000 tonnes
By midyear, the capacity will be increased by 100,000 tonnes to 340,000 tonnes per annum after the company commences its propylene booster project.
The additional 100,000 tonnes of propylene will replace imports, reducing the company’s raw-materials costs.
After the DCC project is completed, IRPC will have propylene production capacity of 640,000 tonnes per year. We will use about 340,000 tonnes per year for polypropylene production.
The remaining 300,000 tonnes will be used for making specialised chemicals so that we can make value-added products.
The completion is due in 2014
