Page 15 - DMEA Week 24

DMEA PETROCHEMICALS DMEA

QP integrates Qatari

petchem marketer

QATAR STATE-OWNED Qatar Petroleum has Petrochemicals firms in Qatar have also been
announced it will integrate Qatari petrochemi- consolidating in recent years to achieve lower
Qatar, like other cals marketer Muntajat into its operations, under costs and become more competitive interna-
Middle Eastern efforts to strengthen its downstream business. tionally, at a time when prices are low and the
producers, wants to Munjarat markets polyethylene (PE) and market is crowded with suppliers. Among the
consolidate and build other petrochemical products such as methanol, major deals, state-owned Qatar Vinyl merged its
up its petrochemicals methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and linear alkyl operations with Qapco in 2017.
segment. benzene (LAB), as well as fertilisers and metals. The same thing is happening in other Middle
QP aims to integrate the company within the Eastern states. Oman last year integrated state-
next few months, it said in a statement on June owned oil company OOC, refiner ORPIC and
11. several other domestic energy firms. Meanwhile,
“The integration of Muntajat into QP is a Saudi Arabia’s Sipchem, which produces metha-
strategic move that will further strengthen our nol, polymers and acetic acid, last year merged
downstream capabilities and enhance the state of with polypropylene (PP) producer Sahara
Qatar’s global competitive position in the down- Petrochemicals.
stream sector,” QP CEO Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi National oil giant Saudi Aramco is also pre-
said. paring to take a majority stake in the country’s
QP’s main business is LNG production, but top petrochemicals producer, SABIC.
the company is aiming to build up its down- QP is also investing in new Qatari petrochem-
stream division to serve as a hedge against gas icals capacity, having struck a deal with Chevron
market volatility. Two months ago, it also inte- Phillips Chemical of the US last year to develop
grated petrochemicals firm SEEF into its oper- a 1.9mn tpy ethane cracker in Ras Laffan. The
ations. SEEF is a joint venture between QP and plant will consist of two high-density PE units
Qatar’s UDC that operates a 100,000 tonne per with a combined output of 1.68mn tpy. They are
year (tpy) LAB plant in Mesaieed. scheduled for launch in 2025. ™

REFINING

Dubai firm launches new

refinery at Fujairah

UAE DUBAI-BASED Ecomar Energy Solutions has bunkering and oil trading ports in the world,
launched production at a third oil refinery in thanks in large part to its strategic position out-
The 15,000 bpd plant Fujairah, building on the UAE port’s status as a side the Strait of Hormuz, the main route for
is owned by Dubai- major hub for oil trading, bunkering and storage. Middle Eastern oil exports that Iran has now and
based Ecomar. The 15,000 barrel per day (bpd) Ecomar again threatened to block.
refinery produces naphtha, kerosene, gasoil The port’s storage space ran out at the height
and residual fuel, equipped with facilities to of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, which
store up to 130,000 cubic metres (1.1mn bar- triggered a collapse in global fuel demand.
rels) of oil, S&P Global Platts reported on June Emirates National Oil Co. (ENOC), Fujairah
18. It runs on imported Arab Heavy and Light Oil Terminal, Vopak and Gulf Petrochem are
crude oil. among the other firms that operate tank farms
“We would love to do business with all the at the port, while trading giant Vitol has a 82,000
producers in the region: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, bpd refinery and Germany’s Uniper Energy a
Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Oman,” Ecomar’s trad- low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) unit.
ing director told Platts. “We could have rented UAE-based Brooge Petroleum, which also
10 times over our storage capacity but for now has storage facilities in Fujairah, wants to build
we need every cubic metre we have for our own 180,000 bpd refinery there, as part of a broader
storage.” expansion project. Its first 25,000 bpd unit was
Its storage tanks are currently 80% fuel. due on stream by year-end, the company said in
Fujairah has emerged as one of the global February. ™

Week 24 18•June•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15