Getting the job done: 20 million man hours later... a petrochemicals plant in China

Andy Clarridge, principal process engineer, Shaw Stone & Webster (SS&W), BSc chemical engineering, Loughborough University (1991)

The project in brief

• PROJECT Realisation of grassroots 600,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) ethylene unit, downstream pyrolysis gasoline hydrogenation and aromatics extraction units as part of an integrated petrochemical site located at Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China.
• CLIENT BASF-YPC – one of the first Sino-Western joint ventures between BASF of Germany and SINOPEC of China.
• REASON FOR PROJECT The project was conceived to capitalise on the astounding market growth and future demand of ethylene and derivative chemicals in the Asian market.
• SCHEDULE BASF-SINOPEC joint venture contract approved, June 2000; mechanical completion, December 2004; ready for start up, April 2005; full overall commercial operation, mid-2005; official opening, September 2005.
• COST Overall integrated petrochemical site investment is about. $2.9 billion, with the SS&W scope at about $500 million.

The project was conceived by BASF with the intention of creating a major integrated petrochemical site in China. In partnership with SINOPEC, one of the largest petroleum and petrochemical companies in China, the joint venture company BASF-YPC engaged Shaw Stone & Webster to supply the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the 600,000 TPA ethylene unit and associated units in one of the largest lump-sum EPC contracts to be negotiated in China by a Western contractor.

Engineering spread across three continents

The engineering and procurement functions for the project took place across three continents: initial process design of the ethylene unit and furnaces started in Houston, USA and subsequently transferred to the UK for detailed design and procurement. The detailed engineering of the remaining process units was performed under sub-contract by a Chinese design contractor in Beijing.

I worked in a number of roles on the project, starting as lead process engineer for the detailed engineering and design of the ethylene unit in the UK, picking up from the front-end process package completed in Houston. I subsequently transferred to Beijing for 12 months working as process engineering supervisor for the pyrolysis gasoline and aromatics extraction units engineered by the Chinese design contractor, providing technical support and ensuring compliance with project specifications. Then, for about 24 months, I transferred to the Nanjing site, which is located on the Yangzi river about 200 km from Shanghai, to act as the interface between SS&W and the client during precommissioning, commissioning and start up. Finally, I provided technical commissioning support and validated plant performance during the guarantee test runs, concluding with initial acceptance of the unit by BASF-YPC.

All team members work together for success

The size of this project, which by completion was in excess of 20 million construction man-hours, was by its own virtue a challenge. Combining the work practices and methodologies of the Chinese local labour and supervision with SS&W’s international expectations for safety and quality required diligent attention to detail and vigilance. However, the efforts of many thousands of individuals contributed to the project’s success and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the project was working closely with a wide range of people, from discipline engineers in the UK and China, to operations personnel, senior project executives and construction supervisors and labourers. On a project of this scale, the timely resolution of dayto- day problems that inevitably arise is critical. Assessing, analysing and generating technically acceptable solutions is critical to avoid delays to the construction progress.

Ultimately other SS&W engineers and I maintained progress by being flexible, working out of the normal sequence of events if necessary and generally adopting a positive ‘can do’ approach to meet the overall objectives of delivering an efficient and technically compliant facility to the client.

I am now working as project manager for SS&W on the feasibility study to install our latest ethylene unit recovery technology with a view to expanding the unit by 25 per cent to meet the continued demand of the expanding Chinese economy.