Fluor has started the pre-front-end engineering and design (pre-FEED) and FEED for INVISTA’s new adiponitrile (ADN) manufacturing facility in China.

The manufacturing facility is anticipated to have an annual production capacity of approximately 400,000 tons of ADN, a chemical that is used to make nylon polymers, fibers and other specialty materials. It will be the first world-scale ADN facility constructed in more than 35 years.

“Fluor has a long history of delivering megaprojects in China safely, with quality, on time and on budget,” said Sandeep Nibber, president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals business in Asia Pacific. “Our strong, experienced project team will execute with the same level of excellence on this project as we have on others. Aligning with INVISTA’s project vision, we are  deploying our integrated solutions approach and collaborating with our global sourcing and local construction experts in the early design phase. The result will be an efficient schedule and cost certainty to the project’s execution plan.”

Work is being led out of Fluor’s Shanghai office. Facility construction is expected to begin in 2020, with start-up expected to begin by 2022.

With offices in Shanghai and Beijing, Fluor has been active in China for more than 40 years. As part of a joint venture, Fluor also owns, operates and maintains the COOEC-Fluor fabrication yard in Zhuhai, which is one of the largest fabrication yards in the world.