Egypt discusses plans to revive $2bn aromatics complex

29 November 2017
No official announcement expected before the end of the year

The state-owned Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM) is discussing reviving its $2bn aromatic petrochemical complex project, according to industry sources.

“Talks about reviving this project are ongoing,” said one industry source. “Nothing official is expected to be announced until 2018.”

The project, due to be constructed in Alexandria, was first announced in 2005 and has been delayed several times due to financing problems and concerns over feedstock supplies.

Little progress has been made since 2012 when a pre-feasibility study, which was carried out by the US' KBR, showed that there wasn’t enough feedstock being created locally to supply the facility and the project was not commercially viable using imported feedstock.

Since then hydrocarbon market dynamics have changed significantly in the region with large gas reserves discovered in the Egyptian territorial waters and the global price of crude oil dropping significantly.

Under the original plans ECHEM was planning to set up the complex to primarily produce benzene and paraxylene.

The capacity of the plant was initially estimated to be 400,000 tonnes a-year of benzene and 600,000 tonnes a-year of paraxylene.

The naphtha feedstock (1.8 million tonnes per annum) for the plant was due to be sourced from the production facilities at Alexandria and Suez.

The project formed part of the government's 20-year, $10bn Petrochemical Master Plan (PMP), which was designed to increase the production of petrochemicals to 15 million tonnes a-year.

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