Work has commenced on Qatar Petrochemical Company’s (Qapco) $183.4 million ethylene cracker plant expansion at Mesaieed to raise the chemical’s capacity from 525,000 tonnes per year (tpy) to 720,000 tpy.

Ethylene will be used as feed for downstream polyethylene and vinyl chloride plants as well as for exports, while its by-products will be sent for processing to customers located within the Mesaieed industrial site.
The company said the project would adopt Stone & Webster’s ethylene-cracking process from the standpoint of its technical advantages. Stone & Webster will provide project services and execution in association with JGC and CTCI Corporation, which is headquartered in Taiwan.  Stone & Webster will also provide engineering services and procurement of both proprietary equipment for the cracking furnaces and proprietary Ripple trays.
The company’s proprietary olefin and refinery technologies, including the recently acquired downstream Badger ethylene technologies, allow it to provide integrated refinery and petrochemical solutions for its clients around the world.
Qapco is Qatar’s largest petrochemical company.  Industries of Qatar (IQ) is the major shareholder in Qapco, holding 80 per cent of the total shares, while Atofina of France, a wholly owned subsidiary of TotalFinaElf, holds 20 per cent.
The completion date for the project is July 2006.
Qapco produced 525,541 tonnes of ethylene in 2003, against 495,066 tonnes in the previous year. Sales of the product were 174,654 tonnes, mostly to Qatar Vinyl Company, against 155,725 tonnes in 2002.
Qapco’s other major product is low-density polyethylene (LDPE), of which it produced 384,486 tonnes in 2003 against 379,172 tonnes in the previous year. All of the output was sold. Sales in 2002 were 394,450 tonnes.
Sales of both LDPE and ethylene registered their highest-ever figures in terms of volume. Sulphur, also produced by Qapco, has a plant design capacity of 70,000 tpy and production in 2003 was 45,833 tonnes against 43,998 tonnes in 2002. The main customer is India.
The gross annual turnover increased by around 21 per cent, moving up to QR1.3 billion ($353 million) from QR1.07 billion in 2002.
“Year 2003 has been highly encouraging for Qapco as the company successfully stood up to all the challenges that came its way, surpassed many previous performance records and reaped remarkable results for all its products, both in terms of demand and price,” remarked vice chairman and general manager Hamad Rashid Al Mohannadi.
A major highlight of the year was the realisation of QR705 million in net profits, a 73 per cent increase over the previous year.
 “Plant operations have been extremely good throughout the year,” said Al Mohannadi.
“We started the year on a very positive note with the ethylene plant achieving its highest monthly production in January. Thereafter, we started sharing our ethane feedstock with Q-Chem according to a Memorandum of Understanding between Qapco and QP, for which Qapco is duly compensated for the shortfall of ethane.
“This agreement is likely to continue in 2004 till the upstream feedstock producing sources are fully equipped to handle the demands of both Qapco and Q-Chem.”
About the Ras Laffan ethane cracker and Qatofin projects, Al Mohannadi said significant progress had been achieved in the run-up to starting construction work.
The Qatofin project, being developed by Qapco and Atofina at Mesaieed, involves setting up a polyethylene plant of an initial capacity of 450,000 tpy.
The feedstock ethylene required for the polyethylene plant will be supplied from an ethylene cracker of capacity 1.3 million tpy to be developed at the same time at Ras Laffan Industrial City by a joint venture of Qatofin and Q-Chem.
On the marketing side, Qapco, which exports to 70 countries, opened three new offices in India. Earlier, offices had been opened in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Pakistan, Egypt and Syria as well as a warehouse in Syria to serve the Middle East market. The company plans to open an office and warehouse in Dubai.
In addition to its own products, Qapco sells a part of the HDPE production of Q-Chem, the products of QVC, the polypropylene of Reliance and some products of its shareholding partner Atofina. Al Mohannadi said the company planned to sell Qatar Fertiliser Company’s ammonia and urea.