AMEC has been working as SNCG’s project management contractor for the overall facility since early 2006. AMEC engineers will provide the basic engineering and design needed to define and integrate all the common, site-wide systems required to service the six individual process units within the facility. These systems include power and steam distribution, water systems, flare and fire fighting, interconnecting pipework, air and gas, site-wide instrumentation, control, electrical systems, loading/unloading facilities and storage.

The new facility, which is designed to produce 540,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year and which will include a coal gasifier plant, a methanol and methanol-to-propylene unit and a polypropylene unit, is scheduled to be completed in early 2009. Polypropylene is a chemical product usually derived from oil refining and ethylene processing but the project will use coal as the feedstock, which will come from large reserves in the Ningxia area.