The €2.6bn (£2.3bn) contract, with Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers, was signed in May 2022. Now that all contractual conditions have been satisfied the joint venture is expected to start work within weeks.
Urea is an important raw material in agriculture and food production. The plant will be the largest in Australian and one of the largest in the world, says Clough’s parent, Webuild.
"Thanks to this contract, Webuild enters a new and promising market segment at a time when global demand is growing,” said Webuild chief executive Pietro Salini.
The contract involves the engineering, procurement, construction, pre-commissioning, and commissioning of the plant, which is expected to create around 2,000 jobs during the construction phase. Located on the Burrup Peninsula, approximately 20 kilometres north of Karratha on the coastline of Western Australia, the plant will have a production capacity of more than two million tonnes of urea annually.
The plant will produce fertiliser from urea by transforming natural gas into ammonia and then into urea using Syncor ammonia technology from Danish process engineering group Topsoe.
The plant is expected to be the largest ammonia plant in the world on a single synthesis reactor.
“We are especially proud to have reached this point, which confirms what was announced in the Roadmap to 2025. This contract brings valuable expertise to our Group thanks to the know-how brought by Clough. It also confirms the strategic value of this recent acquisition,” said Salini.
Webuild acquired Clough for AU$4bn (£2.2bn) in February 2022 after a lengthy process that culminated in Clough entering voluntary liquidation in December. Webuild had been negotiating to acquire Clough from its South African parent company, Murray & Roberts but pulled out of the deal in early December after carrying out due diligence.
Webuild has plans to expand in Australia, which is already the group’s biggest market after Italy.
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