Situation

To strengthen its market position, chemical production company INOVYN drew up a new business case for its Lillo location. In doing so, Inovyn – at the time it was a joint venture between Solvay and Ineos, now it’s 100% Ineos – aimed to further develop its chlorine strategy. The new business opportunity consists of replacing caustic soda (NaOH) with potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a by-product of chlorine production.

INOVYN is a chemical production company that is part of the INEOS groep. In Antwerp chlorine is produced with sodium hydroxide (NaOH, otherwise known as caustic soda) as a by-product. The use of a different salt as a raw material produces potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a by-product, with which could serve new markets.

The project consisted of:

• the addition of several new production units
• the conversion/tie-in of part of the existing installations

Solution

INOVYN produced the basic design package and then approached the market for the EPCm phase. KH Engineering was chosen because in KH Engineering, INOVYN found the open and transparent partner it was seeking. This partner philosophy was rolled out with the classic division of roles during the Engineering and Procurement phase and was further extended by the creation of an integrated team for construction management.

During the start-up phase of the EPCm assignment, scans were made for the tie-ins with the existing process systems. At the client’s request, these tie-ins were largely realised during two shut downs. The scans were also combined with the 3D design in order to maximise the efficiency of the reviews.