QatarEnergy green lights $6-bln petrochemicals project

QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company have completed the FID for a USD 6-billion petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City, the Qatari NOC announced on Sunday.

The project will be run by a joint-venture company between the two partners, with QatarEnergy holding a 70% stake and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company holding the remaining shares.

The Ras Laffan petrochemicals complex will consist of an ethane cracker with the capacity to produce 2.1 million tonnes of ethylene per year. The asset will be the biggest of its kind in the Middle East.

Additionally, it will house two polyethylene trains for a combined production of 1.7 million tonnes per year of high-density polyethylene polymer products.

The facility located 80 kilometres north of Doha is expected to begin production in 2026.

QatarEnergy also announced that the EPC contract for the ethylene plant was awarded to Samsung Engineering CTCI Joint Venture.

EPC works for the polyethylene plant was awarded to Italian engineering entity Maire Tecnimont.

American engineering company Emerson signed the main automation contract for the project

“This marks QatarEnergy’s largest investment ever in Qatar’s petrochemicals sector and the first direct investment in 12 years,” said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs and president and CEO of QatarEnergy.

The facility will double the company’s ethylene production capacity and raise its local polymer production from 2.6 million tonnes per year to 4 million tonnes per year.

The deal follows QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company’s FID made in November 2022 to jointly build the USD 8.5-billion Golden Triangle Polymers Plant in Texas, the world’s largest integrated polymer facility.