KUWAIT - Chemical JVs.

Kuwait's involvement at Yacheng began in October 1985, when gas development was estimated to cost $500m. Santa Fe Minerals (Asia) acquired a 15% equity in a 25-year contract. KPC's engineering division had been working on a feasibility study for its Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC) and China Offshore Gas Utilisation Co. for a 500,000 t/y ammonia plant to be built on Hainan island, using the Yacheng gas. This was to be PIC's second major venture in China.

The first JV was the Sino-Arab Chemical Fertiliser Co (SACF) in which PIC had 30%. The other partners were the Kuwaiti-Tunisian Societe Industrielle d'Acide Phosphorique et d'Engrais (SIAPE), with 40% held by the China National Chemical Construction Corp. (CNCCC). SACF's plants, to produce 480,000 t/y of diammonium phosphate (DAP) and 600,000 t/y of nitrogen potassium phosphate (NPK), were to be completed in 1992. The DAP and NPK plants were to be built at Quinhuangdao. SIAPE, contracted to build the plants, was to supply the phosphoric acid feedstock. PIC later negotiated equity in a third fertiliser plant in Sichuan province, then estimated to cost about $200m, to produce 500,000 t/y of ammonia. A pre-feasibility study on this was done by Santa Fe Braun.