ABU DHABI - Equity In Borealis.

Under a series of deals signed on Sept. 15, 1997, OeMV sold its 100-owned PCD Polymere to Borealis of Copenhagen, a 50-50 venture between Statoil of Norway and Neste Oy of Finland created in 1994. This made Borealis the second largest producer of polyolefins in Europe and put it on a level with Dow Chemical and Montell in the industry's global rankings, with ExxonMobil in the lead. In return for PCD, OeMV got 25% in Borealis and IPIC obtained the other 25% of Neste's equity for cash. The new Borealis ownership structure was completed on May 4, 1998.

PCD's plants in Austria and southern Germany raised Borealis' polyolefins capacity by more than 900,000 tons to well over 3m t/y. Borealis has large plants in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Portugal and smaller plants in Germany and France. Borealis also has 40% equity in Abu Dhabi Polymers (Borouge), with ADNOC holding 60%, which has a complex at Ruwais on stream since December 2001 with a capacity of 600,000 t/y of ethylene 225,000 t/y of HDPE and 225,000 t/y of LLDPE (see DT No. 2).

Having provided its Borstar technology to the latter two units and now marketing Ruwais PEs in Europe through its network there, Borealis expects the HDPE and LLDPE plants to produce 300,000 t/y each by 2004. Asian PE imports are expected to rise from 12.8m t/y in 2000 to 20m t/y by 2005. Singapore-based Borouge Pte is a second ADNOC-Borealis venture which is marketing Ruwais PEs in Asia. It has marketing and sales offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi, with plans to open offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Chenai. It is to have offices in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Borouge complex at Ruwais has been designed to allow for an additional 300,000 t/y cracking for ethylene. The would make it a world-scale complex