Qatar Petroleum has not ruled out further world-scale investments in its petrochemicals business unit, despite having two megaprojects under development.

Speaking at the MEED Qatar Projects 2014 conference Mohamed Nasser al-Hajri, director of Downstream Ventures for QP, stated that while the company did not have a specific scheme in mind it was always open to new opportunities.

“Al-Karaana and Al-Sejeel will almost double our capacity in ethylene and polyolefins,” Al-Hajri said. “However, we will always look for further schemes that can utilise ethane and natural gas liquids.”

Doha has previously stated that it plans to produce 23 million tonnes a year of petrochemicals by 2020.

The Al-Karaana petrochemicals project is a joint venture of QP and the UK/Dutch Shell Group and is at the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender phase. The scope includes a mixed-feed steam cracker unit that will be supplied with ethane and propane feedstock. The cracker will have a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of ethylene and 170,000 t/y of propylene.

A further three units will produce linear alpha olefins (LAO), monoethylene glycol (MEG) and oxo-alcohols.

The MEG unit will have a capacity of 1.5 million t/y and will use Shell Group technology. The work involves the construction of two trains, each with a capacity of 750,000 t/y.

The LAO and oxo-alcohols units will have capacities of 300,000 t/y and 250,000 t/y respectively.

The Al-Sejeel petrochemicals project is a joint venture of QP and Qatar Petrochemicals Company (Qapco) and is at the front-end engineering and design (feed) phase.

The scheme will produce 1.4 million t/y of ethylene when completed, which will feed other units at the proposed complex. A further 850,000 t/y of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), 430,000 t/y of linear low-density polyethylene (LDPE), 760,000 t/y of polypropylene and 83,000 t/y of butadiene will be produced.

It will also include an aromatics unit sourcing naphtha from the Ras Laffan Condensate Refinery and produce 1 million t/y of paraxylene, 500,000 t/y of benzene, 1 million t/y of purified terephtalic acid (PTA) and 650,000 t/y of polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The projects are fully expected to be fully commissioned in 2018 and 2019 respectively.