Egypt's Largest Petrochemical Plant Gets New Water Technology

As part of a $4.8 billion Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex, the technology project is billed as the world's largest naphtha liquid cracker and will feature GE technologies.

GE and Carbon Holdings have signed a $500 million agreement to provide technology and equity support to the greenfield naphtha cracker and olefins complex project of Tahrir Petrochemicals in Ain Sokhna, Egypt. As part of the partnership, GE will provide equity financing and advanced technologies to the new petrochemicals complex. The technologies to be provided for the new plant include advanced aero-derivatives gas turbines, steam turbines, generators, water filtration and desalination equipment, turbo machinery compressors, and industrial solutions services.

"Egypt is focused on providing a strong and business-friendly environment for investors. In addition to facilitating easy procedures that promote industrial investment, we are also committed to bring advanced technological partnerships that can benefit our youth and all-round economic growth," said Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, Minister of Industry & Foreign Trade. "The visit of GE's senior executive to the country and the company's partnership on the largest industrial project of its kind in Egypt highlights growing investor confidence. The project will be a strong value addition to our economy."

The new plant has the potential to drive overall growth of the Egyptian economy with its products having a strong impact on the construction and manufacturing sectors – two key contributors to the national economy. In addition to direct jobs at the plant, the local availability of the plant's products will also contribute to energizing ancillary industries, thus creating thousands of indirect jobs. With a capacity of 1,360,000 tons per year of ethylene and polyethylene, as well as significant quantities of propylene, benzene, butadiene, and linear alpha olefins, the plant is billed as the world's largest naphtha liquid cracker.

"GE is committed to strengthen our presence and partnerships in Egypt, where we have had a presence of over four decades. We are proud to support key customers with technology and capital that can accelerate productivity and address the increasing demand for infrastructure and industrial development. GE's advanced technologies will be an ideal fit for the project, which will create new jobs for Egyptian youth and boost the manufacturing and exports sector of the country," said John Rice, GE's vice chairman.

Featuring a water desalination and water treatment plant, the complex will employ a combined cycle power plant to generate 300 MW of power. The full-fledged water desalination plant, featuring GE's proprietary ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis technology, has a generation capacity of 3,800 cubic meters per hour.