FEED Designs for Mitsubishi Plant

Arthian was appointed by Mitsubishi Chemicals UK to carry out the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for the buildings on the proposed world’s largest Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) production plant in Louisiana, U.S.A. The proposed $1Billion plant was designed to deliver a long-term supply of MMA to market with the lowest possible carbon footprint. 

Arthian was engaged to provide Civil, Structural, Architectural and Building Services design services for:

• Master planning of the site entrance security and landscaping.
• Mixed-use Control and Administration building 
• Security gatehouse
• Fire station 
• Chemical handling building
• Stores building
• Workshop building
• Drum store
• Contractor’s welfare facility
• Toxic refuge 
• Associated civil infrastructure

It was Mitsubishi’s intention to achieve a cost estimate of +/-20% cost certainty for the buildings based on the FEED design package. To achieve this, the multi-disciplinary Arthian team progressed the building design to the RIBA Plan of Work. We targeted a level of detail between stages 3 & 4 to provide adequate information to support accurate costing of the works and procurement of a local design & build contractor. As part of the design process, we were presented with the following challenges:

• Occupied buildings are designed to withstand a range of environmental conditions and process hazards including hurricanes, tornado, seismic, blast overpressure and pool fire. 
• Occupied building designs should provide shelter-in-place and toxic gas refuge facilities.
• The building & landscape designs should adhere to the Mitsubishi sustainability philosophy, particularly around the health and well-being of occupants. 
• All infrastructure was required to be coordinated and aligned with the process site strategy.
• The site is located on very soft swamp land requiring substantial earthworks. 
• The site is constrained with limited space requiring effective spatial planning and land use. 

Alongside our architectural and Building Services partners, Wellwood Leslie and Hoare Lea, Arthian collaborated with Mitsubishi and their process designers to ensure that the delineation of interfaces for the project had a clear, well defined and standardised approach to design.

Arthian delivered the access, security and buildings scope through RIBA stages 1, 2 and 3 with partial development of stage 4 to increase cost accuracy. 

The key scope of items required included:

Process, Control and Administration (PCA) Building

Due to the number of occupants and limited space, the main PCA building evolved into a 2-storey building. The main building structure and envelope were designed to be fire, blast and hurricane resistant as well as being a toxic gas refuge. The process site control room was also housed within the PCA building within a hardened core which was designed to be tornado-resistant and low response in the event of a blast event. 

Arthian engaged with the Mitsubishi site operators and end users to ensure that functionality and operational efficiency were at the forefront of the building layout and configuration. This included ensuring that the control room was laid out considering industry best practice ergonomic standards. 

Arthian supported in the preparation of the tender documentation which require detailed and careful consideration of the scope split between various contractors and designers. This was particularly important within the PCA building due to the volume of process control and instrumentation cables connecting to the server and control room. The was managed through the development of detailed technical scope of works documents and responsibilities matrix developed in liaison with the Mitsubishi project team.