QATAR - Q-Chem.

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

Ras Laffan Ethylene Co. & Q-Chem-II: A 1.3m t/y ethylene cracker will start up at Ras Laffan in 2008 for the Ras Laffan Ethylene Co. (RLEC) - 53.31% for Q-Chem-II, 45.69% for Qatofin, and 1% for QP. The EPC contractor and technology supplier is Technip. The cracker will receive ethane from a part of the North Field being developed by ExxonMobil, through the pipeline from Ras Laffan (see down11QatrPetchmSep12-05).

RLEC is one of three JVs set up in 2002. The other two are: Q-Chem-II - CPC (49%) and QP (51%); and Qatofin - Qapco (63%), Atofina (36%) and QP (1%).

Punj Lloyd of India in April 2007 won the contract to build the 140-km ethylene pipeline from Ras Laffan to Mesaieed for Qatar Chemical Co.-II (Q-Chem II). Under the $45m deal, Punj Lloyd will install the pipeline, which will transport ethylene from the Ras Laffan Olefins Co. complex to downstream units in Mesaieed. The contract was to last just over a year.

RLIC will have two more ethylene crackers built by 2011-13 so that, together with expansion of Mesaieed's plants, ethylene production by then will exceed 6m t/y. One of these two crackers will be a JV led by ExxonMobil and the second will be led by Shell (as mentioned above).

Mesaieed Integrated Industry: QP is at an advanced stage of study for a new ethylene cracker/aromatics complex at Mesaieed. Under the plan, for which pre-FEED work has already been done, QP is proposing to integrate the new complex into the existing Mesaieed oil refinery and build a swing naphtha/ethane cracker, which will supply ethylene-derivative units and an aromatics complex, including a styrene unit. QP is finalising the project company's structure and marketing study. It wants to bring in an international partner - with negotiations going on with Japanese and European firms - as well as offer a percentage of the company to local shareholders through an IPO.

The world-scale cracker is to receive naphtha from the existing refinery and ethane from the Ras Laffan-Mesaieed pipeline. The refinery would also supply propylene to the complex, which would be converted into PP.

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 small ventures buying PE 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.

Qatar Fertiliser Co: Qafco is a JV owned 75% of QP and 25% by Yara Int'l of Norway (formerly known as Norsk Hydro). Its Mesaieed complex has four plants producing 2m t/y of ammonia and 2.8m t/y of urea with the latest, Qafco-4, officially inaugurated in April 2004. The company now is having a fifth plant, Qafco-5, under construction with a capacity of 4,400 t/d of ammonia and 3,500 t/d of urea by 2010 in a project now estimated to cost $2.5 bn (up from about $470m estimated in 2004). Because of the rising cost, the main EPC contract has been re-tendered, with two FEED contractors having failed to convert their deals to lump-sum. Yara will provide project management and QP will use its "best endeavours" to get the project a 20-year tax holiday.

Qafco-1 came on stream in 1975 with a capacity of 900 t/d of ammonia and 1,000 t/d of urea. Qafco-2, which doubled the capacity of ammonia and urea, started up in 1979 and was debottlenecked later to boost its output. Qafco-3 raised Qafco's capacity for the production of urea to 1.55m t/y and of ammonia to 1.3m t/y. It cost about $541m and was completed in early 1997, built by Uhde (a unit of Hoechst) and Belleli of Italy, under a contract signed in 1994. Fluor Daniel UK was the project consultant. In 1994, Norsk Hydro was made the project manager. It signed a 10-year agreement with Qafco to get marketing rights for ammonia and urea in China and East Africa. QP on March 26, 1995, signed contracts in India to supply Southern Petrochemical Industries Co. and Chemical Corp. of Trivandrum Ltd. with 200,000 t/y of liquid ammonia.

Qafco-4 cost $535m. Krupp Uhde got the $420m EPC job for this in 2001. The financing was completed in September 2001. Qafco-4 also has a 45,000 t/y urea formaldehyde plant built by Krupp Uhde. The latter plant is owned by a separate entity, Qatar Formaldehyde Co. in which the private United Development Co. (UDC) has a 10% stake.

Qafco is to have two more fertilisers units, Qafco-6 and Qafco-7. For these and the fifth unit, Qafco and QP have signed a 25-year gas supply contract. The price of this gas is said to be less than $1/m BTU, but this has an escalation clause (see background in down11QatrPetchmSep12-05).