Beirut (APD) - Urea production across Arab countries reached about 12.5 million tons in 2005 representing almost 10% of global production estimated at 128 million tons, the Doha-based Asharq daily reported Friday.
Overall Arab urea exports represented 33% of global urea trade in 2005, said a report by the Arab Fertilizers Union (AFU) published on Thursday.
"The global production capacity is expected to reach 152.7 million tons of urea by the end of 2006," said Shafiq Al Ashqar, general secretary of AFU.
"The lion's share will go to China to be followed by Saudi Arabia then Iran and Egypt," Ashqar added.
The report expected urea annual production in the Arab world to climb to about 20 million tons by 2010 as a number of Arab countries are engaged in new investments in the petrochemical sector. These countries include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Egypt.
The GCC countries are expected to achieve an output of 10 million tons of urea per year by 2010, according to a recent study by the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC).
Urea is a major component in production of fertilizers, certain plastics, and glues, among other industrial uses. Consumption in the Arab countries is below production capacities and amounted to about 3.16 million tons in 2005, Ashqar said.
"Egypt is the largest consumer of urea amongst Arab countries with annual consumption of about 1.86 million tons, it is followed by Saudi Arabia with 349,000 tons and then Iraq with 258,000 tons," Ashqar said. He added that Arab urea imports total about 559,000 tons annually and Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria and Tunisia are the main importers
Ranking the Arab countries in terms of urea production in 2005, the report stated that Qatar came first in terms of both production and export, with an output of about 2.98 million tons and exports of 2.96 million.
Saudi Arabia ranked second with an output of 2.85 million tons and exports of 2.58 million tons, followed by Egypt which was third in terms of production (2.41 million tons) and fourth by exports which were estimated at 766, 000 tons in 2005.
Regarding the production forecasts for Arab companies, the report said that Saudi petrochemical giant SABIC is expected to start operations in 2006 at one urea production line which has an annual capacity of 1.3 million tons.
SABIC has also another urea production line under consideration with an annual capacity of 1.3 million tons.
A UAE-based fertilizers company and Qatar Fertilizer Company (QAFCO) would each expand production to 1.3 million tons by 2010.
Egypt has established four giant urea projects two of these would produce urea this year with a capacity of 1.3 million tons too.
The third project is expected to start production in 2007 with a capacity of 650,000 tons of urea per year and the fourth project is by the Misr Oil Processing Company (MOPCO) which would produce about 650,000 tons of urea by 2008 or 2009. [TS]
By Shikrallah Nakhoul, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2006
