Liwa Plastics mega project has been launched. The Complex, which consists of four key components, of which the second, third and fourth components are currently in commercial operation, with the integrated commercial operation of the first completion on track to reach full production capacity by Q1, 2022 in line with the project delivery schedule. The project aims to strengthen the industrial sector by producing 880,000 tons annually of polyethylene and about 300,000 tons per year of polypropylene, which will increase Oman’s production of the two polymers to 1.4 million tons per year. (December 2021)

• Oman Refineries & Petroleum Industries Company .Orpic. prepares to issue the front-end engineering and design .feed. tender for its steam cracker and petrochemicals complex in Sohar within the next two months. .July 2013.
• The front-end engineering and design tender has been released for the planned steam cracker and petrochemicals complex project. .August 2013.
• FEED bids are due to be submitted by 17 November. .November 2013.
• Feed and PMC contracts have been awarded for the project. The feed contract, which includes the cracker technology license, has been awarded to CB&I of US and the PMC contract has been awarded to Engineers India Limited .EIL.. .March 2014.
• Financial adviser tender has been released. Bidders have been asked to submit proposals by 6 May. .April 2014.
• The first stage of the two-stage pre-qualification for the EPC work packages has been completed. (December 2014)
• Front-end engineering and design for Liwa project has been completed. (May 2015)
• 19 companies have been pre-qualified for the project’s four packages. (May 2015)
• Bids have been submitted for the project packages. Five technical bids have been received for a polymers plant in Sohar industrial area and three technical bids for an NGL extraction plant in Fahud. (August 2015)
• Preferred bidders have been named for three of four packages of the project, namely, the Natural Gas Extraction Unit in Fahud, the NGL pipeline between Fahud and Sohar and the three plastics plants in Sohar. The contractors selected are – Tecnimont, JV GS Engineering & Construction Corp, Mitsui & Co and Punj Loyd. In the next 2 weeks, a detailed discussion will be held with the preferred bidders in order to finalise the contracts. (October 2015)
• Orpic in negotiations with lowest bidders for the steam cracker package. (October 2015)
• A consortium of CB&I of Netherlands, Saipem of Italy and CTCI of Taiwan has emerged as the frontrunner for the steam cracker package. (October 2015)
• A notice of intention of award valued at approx $2.8bn to provide EPC for cracker Package 1 for the project has been received by a consortium led by CB&I. (November 2015)
• Four EPC packages worth $ 4.5bn have been awarded for Liwa Plastics Industries Complex (LPIC) Project: EPC 1 (Steam Cracker and Utilities): CB&I and CTCI Corporation Joint Venture; EPC 2 (Plastics units): Technimont S. p.A (valued at $895mn); EPC 3 (NGL Extraction): GS Engineering and Construction and Mitsui & Co. Ltd Joint Venture; and EPC 4 (NGL Pipeline): Punj Lloyd Ltd (December 2015)

• Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company SAOC, (‘ORPIC’) has appointed Aljabr-Talke & Co. LLC as a consultant for Study of Alternate Logistic Design for Polymer Plant of Liwa Plastics Industries Complex (LPIC). The contract value is 19,800 USD. (October 2015)

• More than 20 local and international bank and financial institutions and export credit agency have committed to provide $3.8bn for the scheme. Financial close expected in early 2016. (December 2015)
• Orpic secures $3.8 billion in project financing for the project. (March 2016)
• A number of regional and international firms are competing for a contract award for the establishment of a 13,200 cu m per hour capacity nitrogen gas plant to be built on BOO basis to serve the needs of the LPIC project currently under development in Sohar. (July 2016)
• Orpic has laid the foundation stone on 10 October for the two parts ‘I and II’ of the project that includes the steam cracking unit at a cost of $2.8 billion, and the polypropylene and polyethylene production unit at a cost of $888 million. Punj Lloyd of India has started implementing the 300-km pipeline project to transport natural gas liquids from the Fahud station to Sohar Industrial Port at a cost of $112 million. This is the fourth part of the project. (October 2016)
• Client will lay the foundation stone for the $688 million natural gas liquids extraction station of the project in January. The Fahud project, which will be implemented by the Korean GS Company and Japanese Mitsui Company, is the third part of the project. (October 2016)  
• Siemens has won a supply contract from Korean group GS Engineering & Construction for two gas turbine-driven compressor trains and two gas turbine generator packages sets for the project. The NGL plant, once operational in 2019, will increase plastics production to 1.4 million tonnes per annum from 200,000 tonnes. (March 2017)
• Air Liquide has signed a €20 million contract with Orpic to build a nitrogen production plant in Sohar, which will have a total capacity of 500 tonnes of nitrogen per day. Under the contract, nitrogen will be supplied to Orpic’s plastics production complex (LIWA). The nitrogen plant is expected to start operations in the first quarter of 2019. (April 2017)
• Orpic laid the foundation stone for its $688 mn-natural gas liquids extraction plant in Fahud, which forms the third EPC package of the $6.4bn Liwa Plastics Industries Complex (LPIC). This plant will be linked via a pipeline with the project main plants in Sohar as part of an integrated complex that houses also Sohar Refinery, aromatics plant, and polypropylene. (April 2017)
• Yokogawa Electric Korea has received an order to supply an analyzer package solution for the Liwa project. This package order is for 15 analyzer houses and associated analysis systems consisting of process analyzers and sampling instruments. The analyzer houses will be delivered by the third quarter of 2018. (June 2017)
• Orpic and OGC has signed an agreement for the operation and maintenance of a NGL Extraction plant (NGLE) and associated pipelines. A roughly 300 km 14 inch pipeline connecting the Fahud NGLE plant with the Sohar complex will also be operated and managed by OGC as part of this arrangement. The LPIC project is currently underway with a 67% overall progress. (July 2018)
• Construction is ongoing and is expected to be completed by 2020. (October 2018)
• OGC is constructing a 36-inch pipeline running around 250 km from Fahud to Sohar. The pipeline is being built along a separate line carrying NGLs from Fahud to the ethylene cracker facility of Orpic’s Liwa Plastics project. (October 2018)
• The $888mn plastic package, known as EPC 2, of the LIWA project has been completed. (November 2019)
• The steam cracker package is on track for completion in the first quarter of 2020. (January 2020)