Technip and Sasol, the owner of the world’s leading gas-to-liquids* (GTL) technology, announce that they have established an alliance for front-end engineering services for future Sasol GTL projects. Furthermore, it also allows for Technip’s participation during the execution stage of future GTL projects. This alliance, which builds on existing relationships, aims to achieve industry leading capital productivity, through the highest standards of HSE, operability, accelerated innovation and reduced project cycle times.

GTL technology is a process for converting natural gas into petroleum products such as naphtha and diesel fuel. These fuels are very clean with effectively no pollution-causing sulfur or aromatic hydrocarbons. The high cetane number of the diesel fuel will help meet future more stringent specifications. GTL technology is becoming increasingly important not only for the environmental advantages of its products, but also because it provides an efficient and safe solution for the transportation of natural gas. A large portion of gas reserves are considered unusable or “stranded” because they are too far from consumers and difficult to transport. GTL offers a way to convert stranded gas into petroleum products that can be transported and sold using conventional tankers, pipelines, storage facilities and retail distribution systems.

As the reference and main execution center at Technip for GTL, the operating center in Rome, Italy will be in charge of the management of the alliance including the strengthening of the long standing relationship between the Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology center in Boston, Massachusetts with Sasol Technology for the hydrocarbon synthesis technology section.

Nello Uccelletti, Technip’s Senior Vice President Onshore, declared: “Through the acquisition of Stone & Webster process technologies, Technip has become the exclusive co-developer of Sasol’s hydrocarbon synthesis reactor technology. We are proud to be Sasol’s contractor of choice for its future GTL facility projects, thereby confirming both our leading position worldwide as one of the few contractors with experience in major GTL facilities and our long-term relationship with Sasol.”

Lean Strauss, Senior Group Executive of Sasol, noted: “Sasol is excited about its GTL future. We are confident that in working closely together, the design and execution expertise of Technip will significantly further enhance the robustness of our GTL value proposition as we grow our business where our technology strength lies.”

Technip has beenawarded by Chevron North Sea Ltd a substantial(1) engineering, procurement, installation and construction (EPIC) contract for the Alder field. Chevron is developing the Alder field as a subsea tieback to the Britannia Bridge Link Platform (BLP). This field is located in the central North Sea, about 200 kilometers North-East of Aberdeen, Scotland, at a water depth of approximately 150 meters.

The contract will cover a wide scope of work, from engineering to manufacturing and installation:

- the detailed design and pipelay of a 28-kilometer 16” pipe-in-pipe system,

- the installation of a 28-kilometer hybrid umbilical(2),

- various subsea works including the installation of a manifold(3) structure including HIPPS(4), subsea isolation valve structure, valves and spoolpiece(5) components.

Technip’s operating center in Aberdeen will execute the contract, which is scheduled to be completed in the second semester of 2015. Genesis(6) will complete the detailed design workscope and Technip’s spoolbase in Evanton, Scotland, will fabricate the pipe-in-pipe. DUCO Ltd, Technip’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Newcastle, England, will manufacture the umbilical. Vessels from the Group’s fleet will be used for the offshore campaign, including its newest state-of-the-art pipelay vessel, the Deep Energy.

Foster Wheeler AG has announced that a subsidiary of its Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by Enterprise Products Operating LLC (“Enterprise”), a subsidiary of Enterprise Products Partners L.P., for a propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH) and associated power, utilities and infrastructure at Mont Belvieu, Texas, U.S.

The contract value was not disclosed. An initial release of engineering and procurement services, made under Foster Wheeler’s Master Services Agreement with Enterprise, will be included in the company’s second-quarter 2013 bookings. The balance of the EPC work will be booked with the execution of this EPC contract and will be included in the company’s third-quarter 2013 bookings.

The construction phase of the project will be executed through Foster Wheeler’s combined use of direct-hire labor and subcontractors.

“The award for this world-scale project is clear evidence of our ability to be a major player in the U.S. chemicals market, reflecting our extensive chemicals expertise and confirming our EPC project execution capability,” said Umberto della Sala, President and Chief Operating Officer of Foster Wheeler AG. “It is a significant step forward in the expansion of our relationship with Enterprise, and we are focused on delivering world-class performance to meet our client’s business objectives.”

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced that its local Turkish entity, Mitsubishi Electric Turkey A.Ş., has integrated the operations of GENEL TEKNİK SİSTEMLER SANAYİ ve TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ (GTS) and is now inaugurating sales of industrial automation systems under a new 42-person organization encompassing five sales offices in the country.

Under the new structure, Mitsubishi Electric envisions industrial automation sales reaching 3 billion yen by the fiscal year ending in March 2016 in Turkey, one of its priority markets. For further growth, Mitsubishi Electric Turkey also expects to develop sales in neighboring countries.

In addition, Mitsubishi Electric Turkey will support efforts to expand other Mitsubishi Electric businesses in Turkey, including those involving air conditioning and infrastructure-related business, such as satellites, elevators/escalators, electrical equipment for railcars, and power systems.