Qatar Holding Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Industrial City, Qatar

The global thirst for oil and related petrochemical products is increasing, especially in the rapidly expanding economies of Asia.

As a result of this, Qatar Petroleum, via its subsidiary Qatar Intermediate Industries Holding Co (Qatar Holding) is expanding its production capability for petrochemicals with the construction of a new world-scale plant in the industrial city of Mesaieed.

Mesaieed Industrial City (MIC) is conveniently located approximately 40km south of Doha and will provide all the necessary infrastructure for the new plant as well as being close to sources of the crude oil and gas feed stocks required.

Mesaieed Industrial City has excellent port and road infrastructure for transportation of products.

MIC is a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum which has located a number of its subsidiary interests there, including aluminium, steel, petrochemicals, chemicals, a refinery, fertiliser and its headquarters.

Project

The new Qatar Petrochemicals Complex (QPCC) will be a multi-billion-dollar project developed in a 70:30 partnership between Qatar Holding and Honam Petrochemical Corporation of South Korea. The latter was first formed in 1976 and is a major manufacturer of petrochemicals, resins and plastics.

The plant will use liquids feedstocks from the refinery in MIC and also some from Ras Laffan refineries.

The new petrochemicals complex is expected to start production in 2011 and will produce over 1.7 million tonnes per year of petrochemical products, including propylene (180,000t), styrene (380,000t), polypropylene (700,000t), polystyrene (220,000t) and aromatics such as toluene, ortho, meta and paraxylenes, ethyl benzene and benzene (250,000t).

The production will be for the world market and also for domestic downstream industries.

Contractors

The front-end engineering and design (FEED) and project and construction management contracts were awarded to Foster Wheeler Global Engineering and Construction Group (UK) in October 2007.

The process technologies for the new plant will come from several sources, including ABB Lummus of the US and Basel Technologies of Italy (polypropylene and polyethylene processes).

Foster Wheeler will also be involved in the procurement of equipment. This has a long lead time so as to not delay the project unduly once construction begins properly in the third quarter of 2008.

The first phase of the project will include the construction of an ethane and naphtha cracker and also a naphtha reformer.

The complex will also include several ethylene-to-propylene conversion units.