Dallas, TX -- (SBWire) -- 10/13/2010 -- Qatar’s hopes of a sustained surge in petrochemicals capacities on the back of its competitive advantage in ethane feedstock have been dashed by the withdrawal of two foreign investors – ExxonMobil Chemical and Honam Petrochemical – from planned petrochemical mega-projects, putting into question the country’s petrochemicals output target of 30mn tpa by 2014, according to BMI’s latest Qatar Petrochemicals Report.
ExxonMobil is reportedly considering withdrawing from the next planned cracker project at Ras Laffan, while South Korea’s Honam Petrochemical has ended months of speculation and announced that it was indeed withdrawing from its joint venture (JV) with Qatar Petroleum (QP) due to a steep increase in costs, poor availability of project finance and the global economic crisis. The capacities envisaged by the Honam-backed complex were substantial, including 1.05mn tpa ethylene, 700,000tpa PP and 220,000tpa PS. Meanwhile, the status of a major Shell-QP cracker and derivatives complex in Ras Laffan is also unclear – five years after a letter of intent was signed, some reports suggest that start-up has been pushed forward as far as 2015, from earlier predictions of 2011-2012.
Coming onstream a year late due to the global economic crisis and a tight construction market, the Ras Laffan Olefins Company (RLOC) – made up of Q-Chem II (53.3%), Qatofin (45.7%) and QP (1%) – inaugurated a 1.3mn tpa ethylene plant in May 2010, the largest ethane cracker in the world. The Ras Laffan cracker supplies both the Q-Chem II petrochemical complex and Qatofin’s 450,000tpa LLDPE plant, both in Mesaieed, which was opened in November 2009. The cracker will also supply ethylene to HDPE and alpha-olefin plants being built by Q-Chem II that are due for completion in H210. Only 10% of RLOC’s output will be consumed on the domestic market, with around 35% of the HDPE output exported to Europe and Africa and 55% to Asia. In line with this investment, Qapco has launched an expansion project in Mesaieed Industrial City to set up its third PE production line, LDPE-3, adding 300,000tpa to Qapco’s output of LDPE, augmenting overall annual LDPE production to 700,000 tonnes by the end of 2011, reportedly a year behind the original schedule.
Qatari production will grow rapidly at a rate of 7.5% in 2010, compared with forecast global growth of 4.5%. However, the collapse of the Honam JV means that Qatar will remain without PP or PS facilities for the foreseeable future. While producers have reduced PS capacities globally due to its falling popularity, failure to proceed with production of PP means that Qatar will be unable to tap into the rapid growth in this segment. Qatar’s decision to press ahead with LDPE also appears to be misjudged, given the slow rate of growth in this segment as transformers switch to improved LLDPE and PP grades as alternatives. PVC is also absent from current expansion plans, which means the country will be unable to take full advantage of the expected recovery in the construction industry worldwide. For the time being, Qatar will export VCM and EDC to Asia.
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