The Expert in Building Refineries and Petrochemical Plants

In recent years the United States’ successful exploitation of shale gas has changed the energy and petrochemical map previously dominated by the Middle East. To help stabilize the global engineering market, CTCI – Taiwan’s number-one engineering services company which is among the world’s top 100 companies in this field – has been striving to continuously introduce new technologies and new thinking. By means of iEPC (Intelligent EPC), it is creating a new and smarter model for turnkey engineering services, and through strategic alliances it is developing global potential markets. 

Growing through experiences, working on iEPC

(James) Y.H. Wang, head of CTCI’s Marketing & Sales Division, Hydrocarbon Business Operations, notes that the distinction between refineries and petrochemical plants is less clear than in the past. In recent years “refinery-petrochemical integration” has been an industry catchphrase. Combining refining with petrochemical production brings excellent investment efficiency. The Southeast Asian market, in particular, has kept up with this trend. 

CTCI started from the refinery and petrochemical business, and it has abundant experience in providing turnkey services from upstream refineries to downstream petrochemical plants, says Wang. In order to gain international customer recognition and create competitive advantages, CTCI in recent years has been actively developing the iEPC intelligent EPC turnkey system. At the same time, the introduction and application of new technologies in project execution allows customers to view engineering details through virtual plants during the project planning phase, reduce operating and maintenance costs, make project execution more efficient, and provide customers with a better engineering service experience.  

Strong strategic alliance to go global

CTCI actively seeks international business opportunities. In view of the special requirements of large-scale international projects, it is happy to consider forming strategic alliances with other international players to achieve complementary advantages and strong synergies. “In the early years, CTCI struggled single-handedly in the international market, gradually building our strength and reputation,” says Wang. “But in recent years we’ve cooperated in joint undertakings with Chiyoda from Japan and McDermott from the U.S., getting familiar with each other’s operational style through execution of the projects. Sometimes we may be rivals and sometimes we may be collaborators.”     

In order to continue elevating its technological capability, Wang says, CTCI in recent years has continued to carry out plans for investment and M&A with process technology companies so as to enter the high-threshold process technology industry engineering market, expand market share, and strengthen the company’s management capability for carrying out pre-bidding and follow-up project executions.  

To tap increasing opportunities in the U.S.

Due to the successful exploitation of shale gas, the U.S. in recent years has been transformed into an oil-exporting country, and the focus of the global petrochemical industry has shifted from the Middle East to the U.S. Wang points out that CTCI has already carried out numerous large projects in the U.S. Currently under way is the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV) joint venture between ExxonMobil and SABIC for a 1.1 MTA monoethylene glycol (MEG) EPC turnkey project. It is currently the world’s largest modular project on land. Using the “Lego” concept, the project was divided into several modules, which were prefabricated overseas and shipped to the U.S. for assembly. Modularization not only improves efficiency and reduces costs, but also decreases the amount of local labor by 70-80%, which is much appreciated by the project owners.    

Diversified services for reliability

CTCI is continuing to introduce new technologies and new ideas, says Wang, and it has successfully extended the turnkey service to the more difficult front-end engineering design portion. With the most up-to-date technology and diversified service, CTCI can provide customers with “The Most Reliable Global Engineering Services” and aspires to become the “Most Reliable Global Engineering Services Provider.”