QATAR - ChevronPhillips-QGPC Venture.

Chevron Phillips Chemical (49%) and QP (51%) have a plant at Umm Said on stream since November 2002 as a JV called Qatar Chemical Complex (Q-Chem), under an agreement signed on May 18, 1997. It has cost about $1.2 bn and has this capacity: 500,000 t/y of ethylene; 270,000 t/y of high density polyethylene (HDPE), 189,000 t/y of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE); and 47,000 t/y of hexene-1. Ethane feedstock is supplied by the NGL-4 plant. ChevronPhillips (CPC) has provided its own proprietary HDPE/LLDPE and hexene-1 technologies. The products are exported mainly to China and other Asian markets.

A $750m financing deal for Q-Chem was signed in London on Aug. 27, 1999 with 24 regional and international banks. On Aug. 25, 1999 the $800m main contract was signed with a partnership of Kellogg Brown & Root and Technip. The partnership had received the initial award on June 7 at the French presidential palace in Paris (see background in Vol. 57, No. 11).

Ras Laffan Ethylene Co. & Q-Chem-2: A 1.3m t/y ethylene cracker will be built at Ras Laffan for RLEC. This is one of three JVs set up under an agreement signed in June 2002. The other two are: Q-Chem-2, ChevronPhillips Chemical (49%) and QP 951%); and Qatofin - Qapco (63%), Atofina (36%) and QP (1%). RLEC ownership is 53.31% for Q-Chem-2, 45.69% for Qatofin, and 1% for QP.

To be completed in late 2007 or early 2008, the cracker will receive ethane from a part of the North Field being developed by ExxonMobil. There will be a 120 km pipeline to carry ethylene to Umm Said from Ras Laffan. At Umm Said, the ethylene will feed downstream plants to be built for Q-Chem-2 and Qatofin. RLEC's cracking capacity will be expanded later on to 1.6m t/y. Q-Chem-2, to have plants to produce 350,000 t/y of HDPE, and 350,000 t/y of alpha olefins based on CPC's proprietary loop process, will managed the cracker project on behalf of RLEC. Qatofin will have a plant to produce 450,000 t/y of LLDPE.

Q-Chem-2 will soon open commercial bids for the EPC contract covering the RLEC cracker and the pipeline. This will be awarded in the second quarter of 2004, to coincide with the project's financial close. Bidders will include ABB Lummus Global, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) and Stone & Webster of the US, Linde of Germany, Chiyoda Corp. and JGC of Japan, Technip-Coflexip of France and Samsung Engineering of South Korea. The EPC job for Q-Chem-2's Umm Said plants will be awarded by mid-2004. The EPC job for Qatofin's plant will be awarded before end-2004. HSBC is the financial adviser to Qatofin. Royal Bank of Scotland is advising Q-Chem-2.

Qatar Plastic Products Co. (QPPC) - owned a third by each of Qapco, Qatar Industrial Manufacturing Co. (Qimco), and Febo of Italy, is one of the new small ventures buying polyethylene feedstocks from Qapco to produce heavy duty plastic bags (2,700 t/y) and shrinkable film (700 t/y).

QPPC's $8.8m plant went on stream in the first quarter of 2000. Its products are used locally and exported.