"The Cracker" - Olefins 6 facility, Wilton

Thousands of Teesside jobs have been safeguarded after work to improve a plant owned by SABIC has been completed.

Tolent worked on the civil aspect (piling, large concrete pile cap and concrete bases) of this project which is one of the largest single investments in the region's chemical industry for a generation.

SABIC's 37-year-old Olefins 6 facility at Wilton – known as The Cracker – has undergone complex modifications after several years of uncertainty.

It will now be able to process ethane gas imported from the US as an alternative to liquid feedstocks.

The Cracker is fed raw material gases and liquids and cracks apart their components at temperatures of about 1,000 degrees before cooling them to below -180c to produce ethylene, propylene and butadiene.

These are the building blocks that allow the chemical and plastics industries to create a range of everyday items, from food packaging to car interiors, detergents and shampoo.

The project, which took two years to complete, involved more than 800 extra contractors working across SABIC's Wilton and North Tees sites.

The completed investment has secured a "sustainable and competitive" future for SABIC on Teesside.

"Today Tolent will pour the last of the plinths on the furnaces/fired heaters ,the Tolent management and their teams have done a great job throughout the shutdowns , they have met every deadline set ,worked really well with other contractors and achieved a quality job".

Jeff Ward, Jacobs UK Limited (24th February 2017)

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