Officials in Qatar announced yesterday financing worth about $800 million for its Q-Chem II project.
Qatar Petroleum and Chevron Phillips Chemical said that Q-Chem II includes construction of a new 350,000 metric-ton per year polyethylene plant and a 345,000 metric-ton per year normal alpha olefins plant.
The two projects will be located in the Mesaieed Industrial area, adjacent to the existing Q-Chem I plant.
Both plants will utilise Chevron's proprietary technology for the production of polyethylene and normal alpha olefins.
The Q-Chem II project includes a joint venture to develop a 1.3 million metric ton per year ethylene cracker in Ras Laffan Industrial City.
Q-Chem II will have 53.85 per cent capacity share of the ethylene cracker.
The remaining capacity share will be hold by Qatofin, a venture between Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Petrochemical and Total Petrochemicals.
The ethylene cracker will provide feedstock via pipeline to the Q-Chem II complex and Qatofin's new 450,000 metric-ton per year liner-low-density polyethylene unit, also in Mesaieed.
Start up of the Q-Chem II units, the ethylene cracker and Qatofin's unit is slated for late 2008.
The financing for the Q-Chem II and its share of the ethylene cracker will be provided by a group of commercial banks and the Export-Import Bank in the US along with equity capital from Chevron Phillips Chemical and Qatar Petroleum.
The engineering, procurement and construction contract for the Q-Chem II complex was awarded to Italian Tecnimont Spa and Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co.
Technip France was selected for the engineering, procurement and construction of the ethylene cracker.
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