POWER September 2016 - 34

TOP PLANTS
ETHYDCO Power Plant,
Alexandria, Egypt
Owner/operator: APR Energy
Courtesy: Tamer El Sharkawy
Within roughly 90 days, APR Energy set up a 60-MW turnkey power plant-complete
with novel natural gas filtration and compression solutions-to support the operations
of a massive Egyptian polyethylene plant until a bigger, permanent power
plant can be built.
Sonal Patel
I
t all began in April 2013, when Egyptian
Ethylene and Derivatives Co. (ETHYDCO)
awarded a lump-sum turnkey contract to
Japanese engineering, procurement and construction
firm Toyo Engineering and Egyptian
state-owned Engineering for the Petroleum
and Process Industries (ENPPI) to build a $400
million polyethylene plant in Alexandria, a bustling
port city in northern Egypt.
Scheduled to come online in the second
quarter of 2016, the greenfield unit-the
largest polyethylene plant in the nation-
was planned as part of an even more gigantic
$2 billion petrochemical complex under
construction in the Ameriya District, on the
Mediterranean Sea. The polyethylene plant is
designed to produce 400,000 metric tons per
year of the common plastic for many applications,
including for packaging and bottles.
And, because it will help the country reduce
its imports of petrochemical products and
support the booming development of its local
industries, it has the Egyptian government's
staunch backing.
34
But although the project is connected to
the local utility company, Egyptian Petroleum
Co., power supplies are not reliable
owing to numerous outages and operational
problems. Original plans called for the plant
to use 30 MW produced by a nearby refinery,
but that plan was scrapped during the fourth
quarter of 2014 due to high cost and doubts
about its viability.
This meant that ETHYDCO-the country's
largest public company-was bereft of
a reliable power source for its nearly completed
chemical plant, putting it at risk of
more costly, debilitating delays.
Scrambling to rectify the situation,
ETHYDCO mulled its options, eventually
contracting ENPPI for the construction of a
70-MW permanent simple cycle gas turbine
power plant (that will later be converted to
combined cycle mode), as well as a transformer
substation that will connect it to the
national 220-kV grid within the next two
years. But realizing that plant wouldn't be
completed before the polyethylene unit
www.powermag.com
started operations, ETHYDCO also sought
an interim, fast-track power solution for the
commissioning of its polyethylene and other
units at the petrochemical complex.
An Accelerated Solution
The contract was eventually awarded in July
2015 to Mantrac Egypt, which subcontracted
APR Energy, a Jacksonville, Fla.-headquartered
company specializing in large-scale expedited
power solutions, for fast-track installation
and operation of the three-turbine plant.
APR Energy got its start 12 years ago,
when co-founders John Campion and Laurence
Anderson bought the Alstom Power
Rentals division from French giant Alstom
Power (which has since been acquired by
General Electric [GE]). By 2008, the company
had been rebranded as APR Energy; by
2010, it doubled its fleet capacity size; and in
2013, the company also took on GE's power
rental business in a $314 million deal.
Contracts have since been stacking up for
diesel- or gas-powered modules and fuelPOWER
| September 2016
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2016

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