OREANDA-NEWS. July 27, 2011. Essar Projects Ltd.(EPL), part of Essar Group, has secured a USD 320-million (approx Rs 1,450 crore) EPC contract from Jurong Aromatics Corporation (JAC), Singapore. This contract forms part of a USD 2.4-billion grassroot aromatics complex in Jurong Island, Singapore, being executed by JAC. The scope of EPL’s contract includes constructing storage tankages, jetties with loading and unloading arms, pipeline systems as well as the utilities for the entire complex. The project will be executed by a subsidiary company of EPL in Singapore and will be completed within 32 months.

EPL has a strong presence in India (operating through its Mumbai based subsidiary EPIL) whilst additionally having the capability to compete competitively in delivering complex projects across multiple sectors and territories around the World, ranging from Africa, through the Middle East and Asia, and on to Australasia.

Recently, EPL successfully completed the construction of a Nickel Slurry Pipeline in the challenging environment of Madagascar, and is currently constructing an airport in Papua New Guinea for Exxon Mobil

In India, the company is currently executing large sized EPC contracts with Indian majors such as IOCL (Paradip refinery), ONGC (refurbishing and construction of offshore oil platforms), GAIL and GSPL.

Commenting on the contract, Mr. Alwyn Bowden, President & CEO of Essar Projects, said: “This is a prestigious project that recognises Essar Project’s capability and competiveness in the SE Asian EPC market. This order is in line with the group’s philosophy to actively participate in third party projects around the Globe. A third of EPL’s current order book of USD 6 billion comprises of third party contracts and we plan to take this to 50 percent going forward.”

The Jurong project has participation from leading world petrochemical players, viz. Glencore, SK Engineering, Sanhai and Vinmar. The Government of Singapore has a 5 percent stake in the project. The project has secured feedstock supply and product off-take agreements with leading global players, including from BP.

The JAC project involves the development of a condensate splitter and aromatics facility in Singapore’s Jurong Island. The plant will produce 1.5 MMTPA of aromatics – 800,000 tpa of paraxylene, 200,000 tpa of orthoxylene, 450,000 tpa of benzene and 2.5 MMTPA of transport fuels, and is scheduled to go on stream in 2014 with construction starting in June 2011. Furthermore, the project will not only synergize well with the Jurong Island petrochemical cluster but will also be able to use Jurong Rock Cavern (JRC) to help meet its storage requirements.