Doha gets funds for two plants

Officials in Qatar announced yesterday financing worth about $800 million for its Q-Chem II project.

Qatar Petroleum and Chevron Phillips Chemical said that Q-Chem II includes construction of a new 350,000 metric-ton per year polyethylene plant and a 345,000 metric-ton per year normal alpha olefins plant.

The two projects will be located in the Mesaieed Industrial area, adjacent to the existing Q-Chem I plant.

Both plants will utilise Chevron's proprietary technology for the production of polyethylene and normal alpha olefins.

The Q-Chem II project includes a joint venture to develop a 1.3 million metric ton per year ethylene cracker in Ras Laffan Industrial City.

Q-Chem II will have 53.85 per cent capacity share of the ethylene cracker.

The remaining capacity share will be hold by Qatofin, a venture between Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Petrochemical and Total Petrochemicals.

The ethylene cracker will provide feedstock via pipeline to the Q-Chem II complex and Qatofin's new 450,000 metric-ton per year liner-low-density polyethylene unit, also in Mesaieed.

Start up of the Q-Chem II units, the ethylene cracker and Qatofin's unit is slated for late 2008.

The financing for the Q-Chem II and its share of the ethylene cracker will be provided by a group of commercial banks and the Export-Import Bank in the US along with equity capital from Chevron Phillips Chemical and Qatar Petroleum.

The engineering, procurement and construction contract for the Q-Chem II complex was awarded to Italian Tecnimont Spa and Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co.

Technip France was selected for the engineering, procurement and construction of the ethylene cracker.