Egypt Unveils Plan For Petrochemical Complex

Egypt is planning to build a major petrochemical complex in the industrial zone alongside the Gulf of Suez, the head of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) Usama Salih said last week. Mr Salih added that the complex, which will be one of the largest projects to be set up after the January 2011 revolution in Egypt, was formally launched earlier in Washington at a meeting attended by a number of Egyptian and US companies. The project, with an estimated cost of $3.7bn, is to be financed by two loans totaling $2.6bn, which are yet to be finalized – $1.4bn from the Export-Import Bank of the US (Exim) and $1.2bn from South Korea’s Export-Import Bank (Kexim), Mr Salih stated.

The project will be set up by Egypt’s Tahrir Petrochemicals Company is association with the local Carbon Holdings Company. The complex will have an output of 3.5mn tons/year of petrochemicals for local consumption and export, including 1.3mn t/y of polyethylene, 662,000 t/y of propylene, 414,000 t/y of benzene and 214,000 t/y of butadiene, the chairman of Carbon Holdings Basil al-Baz has said. Mr Baz expects the construction of the project to start by end-2013 after securing the necessary funding for it. Its construction will take about three years to complete. The complex is expected to create some 20,000 direct job opportunities, plus 100,000 indirect opportunities.

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