Qatar plans $12bn in petrochemicals investments

01 April 2010

Petrochemical output to rise to 30 million tonnes a year

Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) plans to invest $12bn to increase its petrochemicals production capacity to 30 million tonnes a year (t/y) by 2014, Reuters reports quoting general manager Mohamed Al Mullah..  

The company currently produces a total of 18 million t/y of petrochemicals. Its plants include an 800,000 t/y ethylene cracker at Mesaieed, along with two low density polyethylene (LDPE) plants with a total capacity of 400,000 t/y, and facilities, which produce 70,000 t/y of sulphur.

Qapco’s investments currently stand at $1.7bn, but are expected to rise to $12bn. Ethylene production will be raised to 1.4 million t/y and LDPE production to 700,000 t/y.

Qapco is a joint venture of state-run Industries Qatar with an 80 per cent stake and France’s Total, which owns the remaining 20 per cent.

Qapco plans to develop an LDPE plant, LDPE III, at its Mesaieed complex by 2011, with production of 250,000 t/y, expandable to 300,000 t/y.

Ethylene feedstock for the facility will come from Qapco’s EP2 project at Mesaieed, which came on stream last year, and from Qatofin’s share of ethylene with the Ras Laffan Olefins Company. The LDPE output from the plant will primarily be destined for the Asian and European markets.

In June last year, Turkey’s Tekfen Construction won the $165m contract to build the LDPE plant.

The front-end engineering design of the plant is already being carried out by Germany’s Uhde (MEED 1:6:09).

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