Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) has awarded the QR691.5 million ($190 million) engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the expansion of its existing ethylene plant to Japan’s JGC Corporation.

The technology supplier will be Stone and Webster.
The project is designed to expand the plant production capacity from 525,000 tonnes per year (tpy) to 720,000 tpy and improve the operating efficiency so that by-products can be economically utilised.      
The additional ethylene production will be utilised in downstream derivative units, while the excess is to be exported to international markets.
Established in 1974 to utilise associated and non-associated ethane gas from petroleum production, Qapco is jointly owned by Industries Qatar (IQ) and Atofina, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of TotalfinaElf.
 Qapco’s manufacturing facilities consist of an ethylene plant, two low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plants and a sulphur plant in addition to self-sufficient utilities plants and other offsite and auxiliary facilities.   Qapco is located at Mesaieed Industrial City and has as its neighbours companies producing fertilisers, steel, petroleum products and natural gas liquids. The production units are situated along the coast with jetty facilities and are well connected by road transport, enabling the company to export its entire range of products worldwide.  Qapco produces various LDPE grades to satisfy the requirements of most thermoplastics processing techniques including blown film extrusion, cast film extrusion, extrusion coating, wire and cable coating, injection moulding and blow moulding.
The LLDPE plant, whose initial capacity of 450,000 tpy will be later expanded to 650,000 tpy, is being developed jointly with Atofina, the project going by the name of Qatofin.
 The feedstock ethylene required for the LLDPE will be supplied from the ethylene cracker of capacity 1.3 million tpy being developed at the same time at Ras Laffan Industrial City by a joint venture of Qatofin and Q-Chem.
Qapco produces around 44,000 tonnes of sulphur per year.