Egypt yet to reach decision on $7bn petrochemicals complex

30 October 2017
Company says debt facilities will be approved before the end of the year

Egyptian petrochemicals company Carbon Holdings says that its $7bn Tahrir Petrochmicals Complex (TPC) is due to see its financing given the green light within the next two months.

“We are expecting approval of our debt facilities by year end,” the company’s CEO and Chairman Basil el-Baz told MEED in an emailed statement.

Carbon Holdings started work on TPC one year before the 2011 uprising.

Originally, it was expected to be completed in 2017, but the project has seen several setbacks and delays.

Some of the delays were connected to Egypt’s revolution and the subsequent turmoil.

More recently the delays have been connected to financing problems.

In 2015, Carbon Holdings said it expected financing to close by the end of the year and would be provided by five agencies, but talks were put on hold because Export-Import Bank of the US (US Exim) could not lend new cash until its licence was renewed by Congress.

As things stand the project is yet to see a final investment decision and contractors have not been deployed.

The TPC scheme is Egypt’s biggest-ever petrochemical project and includes the construction of a 1.5 million tonne-a-year (t/y) ethylene cracker and a polyethylene facility with capacity of about 1.4 million t/y.

Other major products will include propylene, polypropylene, hexene, butadiene, benzene, and styrene.

When completed it is expected to be the largest naphtha cracker plant in the world.

Designed to serve both local and export markets, TPC will be constructed in Egypt’s Suez Special Economic Development Zone, with raw materials received and products shipped from the Gulf of Suez.

 

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