Petrochemical Projects Advance

The construction of chemical plants in the Middle East continues unabated as several ethylene cracker projects in Saudi Arabia and Qatar move forward.

Saudi Basic Industries Co. (Sabic) is planning a new cracker complex for Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The project, called Petrokemya IV, is slated to start up by 2012. It will have more than 1.3 million metric tons per year of ethylene capacity. The downstream complement of derivatives plants is yet to be determined because of ongoing negotiations with Sabic's feedstock supplier, Saudi Aramco.

Separately, Sabic says it will have a public offering of shares on the Saudi stock market for another complex it is planning--a 1.3 million-metric-ton-per-year ethylene facility scheduled to come onstream in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.

The company is asking for bids for the engineering, procurement, and construction contracts for that plant, slated to come onstream in the first half of 2008. Engineering firm Foster Wheeler will oversee that project, which in addition to the ethylene, is expected to have polyethylene, ethylene glycol, and polypropylene capacity.

In Qatar, Technip France has won an $800 million contract to build a 1.3 million-metric-ton-per-year ethylene cracker in Ras Laffan, Qatar, scheduled to come onstream in 2008. The cracker will be owned by Qatofin--a joint venture between Qatar Petrochemical Co. and Total Petrochemicals--and Q-Chem II, a partnership between Chevron Phillips Chemical and Qatar Petroleum.

Downstream from the cracker, Q-Chem II is also building polyethylene and -olefins units while Qatofin is constructing a polyethylene unit. These projects are expected to come onstream in Mesaieed, Qatar, in 2008.