Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB&I) has won a contract worth about $1.3bn to provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for an ethane cracker project to be located in Port Arthur [pictured], Texas.

The contract has been awarded by Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA. The new cracker facility will have an ethylene capacity of 1M metric tons per year and will use six SRT-III (Short Residence Time) pyrolysis heaters.

Philip Asherman, CB&I president and CEO, said: "This award is the result of substantial collaboration between our two companies that ensured the project design is fit-for-purpose, significantly reducing costs.

"The cracker project, the fourth new ethane project for CB&I on the US Gulf Coast, will allow Total to capitalize on the abundance of shale gas in the US and realize significant operational synergies, and we look forward to helping them build on their global ethylene capabilities."

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