Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Petrochemical Co (Qapco) have signed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) for the development of a new US$5 billion petrochemical complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City.
World-scale steam cracker
The complex includes a world-scale steam cracker, with the feedstock coming from natural gas plants in Ras Laffan. The project is scheduled for completion in 2018.
The plant will produce petrochemical products mainly to be sold to high-growth markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the country's energy minister Mohammed Al-Sada said at the signing ceremony.
Production
The plant will produce 1.4mn tonnes per annum of ethylene, 850,000 tonnes per annum of high-density polyethylene, 430,000 of linear low-density polyethylene, 760,000 tonnes per annum of polypropylene and 83,000 tonnes per annum of butadiene.
US$25 billion for domestic industry
Qatar plans to spend US$25 billion on expanding its domestic petrochemical industry over the next decade and will more than double its annual petrochemical production capacity from 9.2 million tonnes now to 23mn tonnes by 2020, Sada said at the beginning of the year.
Joint development
Qapco is jointly owned by Industries Qatar with an 80 percent stake and France's Total with a 20 percent stake. QP and Qapco will jointly develop the petrochemical complex.
QP and Qapco have been working together for the past few months to plan the development of the project, which will contribute in meeting the continuously growing global demand for various petrochemical products.
