Honeywell awarded $7 million contract to control ethylene processing at new Saudi Arabia facility

Samsung Engineering Co., Ltd., one of the main contractors for the project, selected Honeywell to provide its award-winning process automation solution, the Experion® Process Knowledge System (PKS), to manage the ethylene production. Honeywell will also install its Safety Manager™ platform to reduce the risk of incidents at the plant.

"Next-generation facilities need next-generation technology, and Honeywell and Experion are two of the premier names in the chemical processing industry," said Meghal B. Joshi, lead process control engineer for Tasnee. "In addition to its process and engineering expertise, Honeywell is a trusted name in safety. It's a perfect fit in all aspects."

The project is scheduled for completion by December 2007. Production at the plant is expected to begin in 2008.

Ethylene is primarily used to manufacture other chemicals, such as plastics. The Tasnee ethylene plant will be located in Al Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province and will produce one million tons of ethylene annually. The facility is part of a larger petrochemicals plant being developed by Tasnee, which is also known as National Petrochemicals Industrialization Company (NPIC).

While standard distributed control systems manage only processes, Experion integrates all process control and safety systems - including non-Honeywell systems - and automation software on a single platform to give operators a complete picture of how processes are functioning. The system provides an unprecedented ability to gather, view and analyze process data across operations throughout a plant.

Safety Manager increases diagnostic messaging capabilities and improves system fault tolerance for critical applications. Designed for a wide range of industries - including hydrocarbon processing, bulk and fine chemicals, oil and gas and energy production - Safety Manager improves practices such as process and emergency shutdowns, equipment protection, fire and gas monitoring and critical control.

"Because ethylene is such a crucial building block in the petrochemicals industry, producers like Tasnee face a constant demand. Experion will help Tasnee's new plant meet that demand," said Paul Orzeske, vice president and general manager of Honeywell Process Solutions EMEA. "More and more chemical facilities are turning to integration in order to operate more efficiently and safely, and Experion's ability to tie various systems - including third-party systems - together makes it a natural choice for the task."