Thermiculite high olefins cracker in Saudi Arabia

Paul Boughton

Flexitallic has been awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by JGC, Japan, for its ‘significant contribution’ to the Petro Rabigh Olefin Plants Project. 

JGC selected Flexitallic as its partner for the strength of its Engineering and Design Team together with the sealing properties of its Thermiculite material.

Petro Rabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical Co., has a planned start up for the end of 2008.  Based in Rabigh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco will supply Petro Rabigh with crude oil, ethane and butane. Sumitomo Chemical will provide proprietary petrochemical technology and the marketing of petrochemical products.

The Rabigh facility is a refinery and petrochemical complex with the centrepiece being the high olefins fluid catalytic cracker complex, integrated with a world scale ethane based cracker. These petrochemical derivative units will produce a total of 2.4 million ton/year of polyolefin's.

Working together with JGC, Flexitallic supplied Spiral Wound Gaskets filled with Thermiculite 835 filler, for the Fluid Catalytic Cracker. 

Thermiculite enables the cracker to perform to its highest efficiency due to the ability of Thermiculite to maintain high sealing characteristics in the hostile operating environment.
 
Thermiculite has outstanding stability to high temperature and aggressive chemicals, Thermiculite materials operate in areas where graphite based products cannot cope due to graphite’s poor resistance to oxidation. A feature of Thermiculite is that it does not oxidise and can seal for the lifetime of the joint.

For more information, visit www.flexitallic.com

Recent Issues