Technip has been awarded a contract by Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE: WLK) to provide detailed engineering and procurement services to expand the recovery section of Westlake’s Petro 1 ethylene plant at its complex in Sulphur, Louisiana, USA.

Technip’s operating center in Houston, Texas, USA, will execute the project, with support from the Group’s office in Mumbai, India.

Stan Knez, Senior Vice President, Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology, commented: "This award follows a series of Technip feasibility studies to help Westlake evaluate expansion options and development of the process design package and front end engineering design for the expansion. Technip is pleased to bring its extensive ethylene plant modernization experience and continue its involvement in bringing this important project to fruition."

Technip has widened its range of services and has reinforced its leadership in the downstream business since the acquisition of Stone & Webster process technologies in 2012.

KBR Inc.has announced today that its joint venture partnership with PT Rekayasa Industri, JGC Corporation and PT JGC Indonesia, the RJK JV, has been awarded the onshore front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract by BP for a third liquefaction train at the Tangguh LNG Project in West Papua province, Indonesia.

The expansion project follows the successful completion in 2009 of the two train Tangguh LNG plant and associated facilities by a joint venture partnership between JGC Corporation, KBR and PT Pertafenikki Engineering (KJP JV).

The Tangguh LNG Project, located in remote Bintuni Bay, West Papua, was the largest capital development project ever undertaken in Indonesia and involved the successful delivery of community, local content, environmental and safety performance.

“KBR is proud to continue our longstanding relationship with BP and our joint venture partners, PT Rekayasa Industri and JGC Corporation and PT JGC Indonesia, on the Tangguh LNG expansion. This project represents KBR's ability to bring world-class engineering skills to complex energy projects and follows KBR’s 30-year presence and successful track record in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Stuart Bradie, KBR President and CEO.

The Tangguh LNG Project is located in Teluk Bintuni, Papua Barat. Tangguh began production in 2009 and gas from a third LNG train will come from a phased offshore development of new shallow water platforms, new pipelines to shore, new infield pipelines, a new integrated onshore receiving facility and new development wells. Tangguh’s capacity is currently 7.6 million tons and is expected to reach 11.4 when the expansion project is completed.

Technip was awarded by Sasol a contract to provide engineering and procurement for eight proprietary Ultra Selective Conversion (USC®) furnaces (1) for a world-scale ethane cracker and derivatives complex to be located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA. The award follows Sasol’s selection of Technip’s proprietary ethylene technology and FEED (2) for the cracker, which will produce an estimated 1.5 million tons per annum of ethylene.

This award validates Technip’s strategy of early involvement to design an effective project execution scheme, bringing value to clients.  Technip’s operating center in Houston, Texas, USA, will execute the project.

“Following the selection of our ethylene technology during the early stage of this project, Technip is pleased to expand our role by supplying the most critical part of the cracker, the furnaces,” said Stan Knez, Technip’s Senior Vice President, Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology. “In addition, Technip’s North America region also is playing a significant project role, having been selected, with Fluor, to provide engineering, procurement and construction management for the cracker and derivatives complex”.

Technip has widened its range of services and has reinforced its leadership in the downstream business since the acquisition of Stone & Webster process technologies in 2012.

In the current year, B&R is expecting record sales revenue of €535 million, therefore surpassing the defined goal of a half-billion euros by a wide margin. This was announced by general manager Peter Gucher at B&R's annual press conference. With a 13% increase in sales, the company continues along the highly successful course laid out in previous years.

"We have considerably increased our market share," says Gucher. Whereas industrial production has only returned to pre-2008 levels in 2014, B&R sales have increased 75% during this time. B&R's core market is in Europe, where two-thirds of the company's sales are generated. The strongest increase in sales revenue was generated in Asia and North America.

In the past 12 months, machine and system manufacturers have automated 270,000 machines with B&R controllers. "The complete scalability of our entire product range gives us a clear competitive edge on the market," explains Gucher. "With Scalability+ solutions, we already offer the tools needed for flexible production as envisioned in the Industry 4.0 concept."

To ensure that its technologies remain on top in the automation industry, B&R invests nearly 15% of sales revenue back into research and development. "We can only continue along the road to success by developing new innovations," says Gucher. In the last five years alone, over 700 engineers have been hired. In addition, ten percent of all engineering hours is invested in training and continued education.

B&R is represented by 24 subsidiaries and nearly 200 offices in 75 countries around the world. "Our decentralized structure is an essential part of B&R's business model," states Gucher. "We are in close proximity to our customers all around the world and always have sales and support engineers who speak the local language." Just in the last 12 months, B&R has opened many new offices, including the company's 24th subsidiary – this time in Japan. A complete team of support, application and sales engineers started work there in June.