Qatar to spend $25B on Petchem growth by 2020

Qatar to spend $25B on Petchem growth by 2020

To spend $25 bln on expanding domestic petchem industry; Annual petchem production to double by 2020

January 30, 2012 3:30 by Reuters

Leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter Qatar plans to spend $25 billion on expanding its domestic petrochemical industry over the next decade, an official said on Sunday.

State-run Qatar News Agency cited energy minister Mohammed Al-Sada saying earlier this month the country planned to more than double its annual petrochemical production capacity from 9.2 million tons now to 23 million tons by 2020.

“In the hydrocarbon area, we are now focusing on petrochemicals,” Abdulrahman Al Shaibi, Managing Director of the Qatar Financial Centre Authority, said.

“We will spend $25 billion on creating additional petrochemical industries as an important feedstock for small and medium-sized companies.”

The tiny Gulf oil producer has become the world’s biggest LNG exporter over the last decade but has imposed a moratorium on further export development of Qatar’s huge North Field, the source of its massive gas reserves, until 2014.

LNG output is largely fixed at 77 million tonnes per annum until 2015 at the earliest, although the plans to remove bottlenecks from existing facilities may boost production.

In December Qatar signed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to develop a $6.4 billion petrochemicals complex in the Ras Laffan industrial city in the Gulf Arab state.

The plant will have the capacity to produce 1.5 million tonnes of mono-ethylene glycol per year and 300,000 tonnes of linear alpha olefin, mostly for export to Asian markets.

Sada said at the time that plans for additional petrochemical plants in the Gulf Arab state were in the pipeline. (Reporting By Regan Doherty, Editing by Daniel Fineren) *image from arabianoilandgas.com