Watch: ship delivers vast €150m furnaces for major chemicals plant

INEOS has released a video showing the moment two huge furnaces worth €150m (US$156m) completed a 20,000 km sea trip to Belgium ahead of installation at the heart of a vast new ethane cracker.

The two furnaces weigh 6,000 t and measure more than 32 m x 60 m. Before the ship left Thailand where the furnaces were made, the cargo was reinforced with a steel framework and welded to the deck of the ship to keep it stable during its 55-day trip to the port of Antwerp. Due to conflict in the Middle East, the ship avoided passage through the Red Sea and instead made a lengthy detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

Ineos says four more furnaces are scheduled to arrive by the end of March as it pushes ahead with construction of its €4bn petrochemicals project known as Project ONE.

Project CEO John McNally said: “Project ONE is no longer a virtual project on paper but is increasingly gaining a foothold in the port. It is hugely motivating to see a plant actually rise after all these years of preparation. A lot of work has been done in 2024, but by 2025 the centre of gravity of construction activity will be fully in Antwerp.”

Engineers from Flemish contractor Sarens have been responsible for lifting the module on to a huge multi-axled heavy cargo trailer – known as a self-propelled modular trailer – that will slowly trundle the furnaces to where they need to be installed.

The cracker has been designed and built by engineering contractor Technip Energies and is expected to start production in 2026. It’s estimated that as many as 10,000 workers, chiefly in construction yards in Thailand, Abu Dhabi, and the Philippines, have helped construct the modular plant. It will have the capacity to produce 1.45m t/y of ethylene, a building block for plastics used in everything from packaging and car bumpers to water pipes and wind turbine blades. Ineos says the carbon footprint will be less than half that of the 10% best performing steam crackers in Europe. The furnaces will be equipped with low NOx burners and combustion air preheaters to reduce NOx emissions and boost energy efficiency. They have also been designed so they can be fully fuelled with hydrogen instead of natural gas, though a slowdown of investment in European hydrogen projects raises doubts about the scale of future supplies. Ineos says it expects to fire them with at least 60% hydrogen once operations begin.

European decline

Ineos’ multi-billion-euro investment is the largest in the European chemicals sector for 20 years.

Investment in Europe has declined as a proportion of global spending, slipping from 29% in 2003 to 12% in 2023, according to figures from the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic). Europe has lost ground to the US where fracking has unlocked huge volumes of cheap natural gas feedstocks, triggering US$208bn of investment in chemical sector projects between 2010 and 2022.

China has long dominated capital spending with the government pursuing an integrated industrial strategy that has involved developing a chemicals sector to supply and grow domestic firms to capture markets for higher-value products including solar panels, cars, and consumer goods. In 2023, China was responsible for 47% of the world’s capital investment in chemicals. 

Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO of Port of Antwerp-Bruges, said: “The arrival of the first furnaces for Project ONE marks a crucial milestone for Port of Antwerp-Bruges and the European chemical sector. This project not only strengthens Antwerp’s role as a strategic hub but also helps anchor a forward-looking and sustainable industry in Europe. This investment is necessary for the European economy.”