Qatar seems to be in a hurry to make up for the modest industrial activity of past years as is clear from the spate of high-investment plant expansions just completed, under implementation or due to begin soon.

As in the case of some of its fellow Gulf states, Qatar has abundant energy resources which has fuelled big spending on major downstream industries, including petrochemicals.
And with spectacular progress made in LNG production, Doha has signalled it will make huge investments in the transportation of the product to become in five years one of the world’s biggest operators in the field. Doha is launching an overhaul of its infrastructure and is looking long term for project financing. It plans to raise around $110 billion by 2010 in loans of up to 30 years. “We are transforming the country for the coming 20 to 50 years,” said Economy Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Thani, recently. “We have a route map for diversification. Qatar is undertaking a major expansion project at Doha International Airport, building new hotels and upgrading the infrastructure – all considered vital to the industrial development initiative and to diversification of the economy. 
The petrochemicals sector is one of the areas where large-scale expansions are taking place. A $220 million ethylene cracker expansion project (EP2) will see ethylene production increase from 525,000 tonnes per year (tpy) to 720,000 tpy.  Two other Qapco-related projects are under implementation, one of which is Qatofin, which will add to the region’s linear low-density polyethylene capacity by 450,000 tpy. The other project, the Ras Laffan Cracker, will create capacity of 1.3 million tpy of ethylene, expandable to 1.6 million tpy.
The Gulf’s fertiliser capacity was yanked up considerably after the fourth expansion at Qatar Fertilisers Company (Qafco). The company boosted its ammonia production capacity by 50 per cent to 2 million tonnes and urea capacity by 65 per cent to 2.8 million tonnes.
Qafco 4, which was completed in April 2004, enabled the company to raise production levels and achieve an unprecedented net profit of QR942.4 million ($258.8 million), up 57 per cent over the previous year.
And thanks to the expansion, strong international demand and favourable prices, Qafco was able to exceed sales and profit targets for the first half of 2005. The company plans to build a fifth plant with a production capacity of 1 million tonnes of ammonia and 1.1 million tonnes of urea and at a cost of $700 million.
Qatar Fuel Additives Company (Qafac) is looking to increase methanol production from 2,500 tonnes per day (tpd) to 9,250 tpd by adding a world-class methanol train. With a steel plant already in operation for a number of years, the opportunity to fulfill booming demand in the construction sector would have been too good to miss. The Qatari government announced expansions at its Qatar Steel Company (Qasco), which should be completed by 2008. The company is introducing a new direct reduction iron (DRI) plant, raising production of molten steel and building a new rolling mill.