IPIC And Oman Oil Plan Complex

The Abu Dhabi government investment fund International Petroleum Investment Co. has formed a joint venture with the state petroleum firm Oman Oil to build a refinery and petrochemical complex in Duqm, Oman. The companies plan to build a 230,000 barrel-per-day refinery by 2017. This project would be followed by the construction of the new petrochemical complex, the scope of which the firms haven’t yet defined. IPIC has some gravitas in the world of petrochemicals. It owns Nova Chemicals and is a majority shareholder in the Austrian petrochemical maker Borealis, which itself is one of the backers of Abu Dhabi’s Borouge petrochemical complex. Oman Oil has tried to build a major petrochemical complex before. In 2004, it agreed to develop a complex with Dow Chemical. But the project went nowhere, and the Omani government allegedly aligned itself with rogue Dow executives in an attempt at a leveraged buyout from under the feet of Dow’s board.