VINACHEM

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Borouge said on Thursday it has awarded a $169m (€123.4m) contract to South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering and Construction for building a 80,000 tonne/year specialty plastics unit in the United Arab Emirates.

The new cross-linkable polyethylene unit would complement Borouge’s low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit at the same site in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, the Middle East-based polymer producer said in a statement.

The new plant would enable the manufacture of innovative plastics solutions for low-to-high voltage energy cables, the statement said.

This would be the final major contract to be awarded for the Borouge 3 expansion project already underway in Abu Dhabi, according to Borouge.

Hyundai Engineering and Construction would also be providing the utilities and offsite facilities for the project, it added.

The Borouge 3 project would more than double the plant’s current polyolefins capacity to 4.5m tonnes/year once fully-operational in mid-2014, the company said.

Borouge is a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and chemical and innovative plastics solutions maker Borealis.