Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB&I), a procurement and construction, (EPC) contractor is growing rapidly since its December 2000 acquisition of Howe-Baker Engineers, Ltd, Matrix Engineering, Ltd, and Callidus Technologies, LLC.

New York Stock Exchange-listed engineering CB&I's sales from January 1 through September 30, 2002 increased 48 per cent over the same period in 2001.

Founded in Chicago in 1889 but now based in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands, CB&I is probably best known for its Lump Sum Turnkey (LSTK) EPC supply of plate metal structures and related turnkey terminals.

In 1986, for instance, CB&I provided a turnkey $361 million LNG/LPG storage terminal for Adnoc on Das Island.

CB&I's record of achievements includes designing and building more than 190 field-erected LNG tanks, more than 190 turnkey plants and terminals, and the world's largest floating roof oil storage tanks.

CB&I has worked throughout the Middle East and Asia-Pacific for many decades, and now operates in more than 40 countries each year.

Recent tank awards in Abu Dhabi, for example, include the unleaded gasoline tanks for Takreer and the water tanks for the Shuweihat Water Transmission Scheme Project for Adwea.

In November 2002 CB&I received a LSTK contract award in excess of $40 million for a low temperature ethylene, ammonia and propylene liquid storage facility to be located at the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park in Caojing.

With its new subsidiaries, CB&I provides LSTK contracts for a wide range of process plants and units, including gas processing, gas treating, gas/oil separating, liquids recovery, nitrogen rejection, hydrogen and synthesis gas production, catalytic reforming, and desulphurisation.

CB&I's Texas-based subsidiary Howe-Baker Engineers, Ltd has supplied more than 3,000 such process plants since its founding in 1947.

Howe-Baker's in-house design, fabrication and modularisation expertise and resources can reduce project costs while improving schedules, safety and reliability, and are now more widely available on a LSTK contract basis.

One of CB&I's notable process plant awards during 2001 was a LSTK contract valued at approximately $105 million from Saudi Aramco to supply the 200,000 bpd Qatif 2 Gas/Oil Separation Plant (GOSP).