What is happening at the Project ONE site? A summary of the most significant recent news is provided below.

We use this newsletter to keep our stakeholders informed of the progress of Project ONE, the pioneering chemical plant being built by INEOS in the Port of Antwerp. We welcome your comments at projectone@ineos.com

How’s it going at the Project ONE site? This is best seen from the air. Fly over the site with our drone and watch the earthworks progress. The initial sheet piling was laid in December 2022 and now work is in full swing on the foundation piles. This work will continue until January 2024.

What else is on the agenda this year?

• Construction starts on temporary facilities for subcontractors
• Work on the ethane tank
• Construction preparations for offloading platform
• Civil-engineering work continues

At the Project ONE site, we are currently working hard on something crucial you don’t normally see, the foundation. You can’t just build a huge petrochemical plant on floor slabs. You need a pile foundation. We will install no less than 18,000 piles to support the facilities and buildings. During the work, we minimise the impact of noise and vibrations by using a special technique with screw piles. Maarten Griep and Herwig Teugels of INEOS comment on this technique.

We cannot complete a pioneering installation like Project ONE alone. So, we count on the knowledge and experience of many Belgian companies.

• Contractor Cordeel: The workspace and storage areas will be equipped with solar panels so that the campus will be self-sufficient in its energy needs. These are also kept low by investing in modern heat pumps for air conditioning in the buildings. Finally, the parking lot is equipped with charging stations for electric cars and bicycles.
  
  

  More about the campus
  

• The temporary company Denys-Aertssen is carrying out the second phase of the civil-engineering work. This assignment includes the installation of underground pipes for sewerage, drinking water, drainage and extinguishing water, the installation of foundations for temporary buildings and the construction of roads, parking, footpaths and bus stops.
  
  Read more about Phase 2
  
  
• Commissioned by TGE Gas Engineering, MBG and Stadsbader Contractors started construction of an ethane cold storage tank at the end of May 2023. With a capacity of no less than 200,000 m³, the tank is a crucial part of our ethane cracker. Some other impressive figures: the tank diameter is 95 metres, its height is 50 metres and its walls are 80 centimetres thick. It rests on 603 foundation piles – each one metre in diameter – and a floating floor slab rising 1.8 metres above the ground.

Abbas Alloul (30) recently started as a water treatment engineer at Project ONE. With eight years of experience as a researcher under his belt, he now applies his insights in practice. ‘At Project ONE, I get to collaborate on a complete water treatment system. From the development phase to its commissioning to its management. It’s a unique experience as a water technologist.’