LIBYA - Ras Lanuf.

The main industrial zone in Libya, Ras Lanuf is the site of the biggest petrochemical and refining plants in the country. A first-phase complex consisting of three units went on stream in April 1987 (more than six months behind schedule, with NOC's subsidiary Rasco then facing problems which ranged from poor performance by some contractors to delays in Libyan funding). Brown and Root of the US was the main technical consultant and a variety of foreign contractors were involved in engineering and construction work. Rasco contracted Hemijska Industria Pancevo (HIP) of Yugoslavia to run the complex. The capacity of each unit was as follows: 330,000 t/y of ethylene, with naphtha as feedstock supplied by Ras Lanuf refinery; 171,000 t/y of propylene; and 135,000 t/y of butene. Ras Lanuf also produces 300,000 t/y of pyrolysis gasoline. Production during the first two years of operation was well below design capacity. It began to pick up in 1989 and in 1993/94 the units were running at about 85% of their capacity.

The second phase, involving projects worth $600m, was to be completed in 1994, with Monenco of Canada as project manager. But the venture was plagued by trouble from the beginning. Tecnimont had won a $50m project management contract as far back as 1985, but when the contract expired in 1990, Rasco appointed Monenco. The first contract, worth $130m, was awarded in October 1989 to a consortium of four companies: Energoinvest, HIP, INA-Project - all of former Yugoslavia - and Brown & Root of the US. In 1990, Brown & Root ended its participation and Technip of France took its place. Capacities scheduled under this phase included 160,000 t/y of pelletised polyethylene (with two lines to produce 80,000 t/y each of HDPE and LLDPE), 68,000 t/y of polypropylene, and 52,000 t/y of ethylene glycol. In Feb. 1991 a $200m contract for the polyethylene unit was given to Hyundai Engineering and Construction of South Korea, as main contractor, and John Brown Engineering of Britain as main sub-contractor. Included in the contract was a unit for hydrogen and ethylene purification. By end-1992, Uhde of Germany won the contract for the polypropylene plant. In 1993, Rasco terminated the construction contract due to the group's failure to fulfill its terms. Thus the building of the following four units were delayed:

- a 58,600 t/y butadiene recovery unit, to process 128,000 t/y of butanes (C4) from the ethylene plant to produce 66,000 t/y of gas feedstock for an MTBE unit to be built nearby, plus about 3,000 t/y of gases to be used as fuel;

- a 47,700 t/y MTBE unit to produce 37,583 t/y of feedstock for a butene-1 unit and to be supplied with 17,000 t/y of methanol from Marsa El Brega;

- an expansion of the existing butene-1 unit to produce 18,300 t/y of butene-1 and 19,000 t/y of industrial gases, with Butene-1 to be the feedstock for polymers to produce plastics in another unit; and

- an aromatics unit to produce 88,000 t/y of benzene with its feedstock to be 220,000 t/y of treated gasoline from the ethylene plant; the benzene was to be used as feedstock for aromatic compounds needed to produce plastics, synthetic fibres and rubber. The project remains stalled.