The oil engineering group TechnipFMC announced on Monday that it has been awarded a contract worth several hundred million euros for the “supply of equipment” for an ethane cracker in the
petrochemical giant Ineos in the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
TechnipFMC, the result of a merger between French company Technip and the American FMC, did not specify the exact amount of the contract, but stressed that it was a “large contract”, i.e. “between $250 million and $500 million”, according to the company’s statement.
The cracker, with a capacity of 1,450 kilotons per year, is “designed using the latest technological advances to achieve a CO2 footprint reduced by 50% compared to the best 10% of European crackers”, according to Technip Energies.
In addition, “the plant has been designed to accommodate a carbon capture device,” the group adds.
An ethane cracker transforms this fuel into ethylene, which is the basis for the production of chemicals for all kinds of uses (plastics, paints, medicines, etc.).
Inesos, founded by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, has several industrial sites in Belgium and had announced in 2019 an investment of 3 billion euros to build this cracker.
The group is involved in the manufacture of a range of chemicals that end up in many everyday products, from shower gel to medicines.
