Page 8 - Euroil Week 48 2019

EurOil INVESTMENT EurOil
Turkish SWF to invest in petchem facility
TURKEY
Construction, led by local rm Ronesans Holding and Algeria’s Sonatrach, should start in 2021.
TURKEY’S sovereign wealth fund, the Turkish Wealth Fund (TVF), said this week that it would invest $10bn, around 20% of its total value, in a petrochemical complex being developed in Adana Province in the south of the country.
While initial reports did not disclose the spe- ci c project, Downstream MEA (DMEA) under- stands the investment will cover a greenfield facility alongside the complex being developed by Ceyhan Polipropilen Uretim, a joint venture of local rm Ronesans Holding and Algerian national energy company (NOC) Sonatrach.
TVF said construction would begin in 2021 on the new Ceyhan Mega Petrochemistry Indus- try Zone, which will include a 457,000 tonne per year (tpy) propylene unit, with start-up envis- aged in 2023.
at TVF should choose to invest in such an integral project to the Turkish economy comes as little surprise, particularly given that the coun- try’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed himself chairman of the fund in 2018 and over- hauled the board.
Erdogan will no doubt take the opportunity to grandstand about the 10,000 jobs the project will create during construction and the further 5,000 jobs it will create when operational, as well as the $1.5bn per year it is seen contributing to the country’s trade de cit.
Honeywell UOP was awarded a deal earlier this year to provide its C3 Ole ex technology for
the Ceyhan facility. e US rm anticipates that Turkish demand for polypropylene will grow by around 2.5% per year over the next decade.
e planned plant will rst convert the pro- pane feedstock to propylene via a proprietary propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit, with the propylene then converted to polypropylene in a catalyser.
e plant is to be located in the Yumurtalik free trade zone (FTZ) near Adana on Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean coast, allowing the operators some tax and customs duty exemp- tions. e domestic market is anticipated to account for around 80% of production, with the remainder being exported to other regional markets.
With Turkey’s export-led plastics sector cur- rently supplied mainly by imports, there is clearly a market for increased domestic production.
Azerbaijan’s SOCAR is currently looking at plans to expand production at its existing Pet- kim petrochemical plant at Aliaga on Turkey’s Aegean coast.
e company will later this year commission its 214,000 bpd SOCAR & Turcas Aegean Re n- ery (STAR) oil re nery adjacent to the Petkim plant which will supply it with up to 1.3mn tpy of naphtha and 455,000 tpy of mixed xylenes feed- stock. It also has natural gas available through an unimplemented agreement with Turkey’s state gas importer Botas. ™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 05•December•2019