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| Sawan: ‘I don’t want to speculate on start-up |
The “final investment decision” on the proposed multi-billion-dollar world scale petrochemical complex being set up jointly by Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell at Ras Laffan, is expected in 2014, Qatar Shell chairman Wael Sawan has said.
“Currently, we are at the cusp of moving into the front-end engineering and design — FEED stage,” Sawan said in an exclusive interview with Gulf Times in Doha.
The plant, with a capacity of 1.5mn tonnes a year of mono-ethylene glycol will be the “largest MEG site” in the world, Sawan said.
The joint venture will also be able to produce other olefin derivatives such as linear alpha olefins, which will boost capacity to more than 2mn tonnes of finished products.
Qatar Petroleum will hold 80% equity and the remaining will be held by Shell.
Asked when the plant would start up, Sawan, also Qatar Shell’s executive vice-president and managing director of Pearl GTL said: “At this stage, I don’t want to speculate on the plant start-up. The next couple of years — from now on until mid-2014 — will be critical in completing all the design work and being ready to go into construction.”
The memorandum of understanding for the project was signed between Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell in December 2010 followed by the heads of agreement (HoA) in December 2011.
“The process then goes through a pre-FEED phase and then moves into FEED,” Sawan said.
The mono-ethylene glycol would be produced using Shell’s proprietary OMEGA (Only MEG Advanced) technology and linear olefins using SHOP (Shell Higher Olefin Process).
Mono-ethylene glycol is an important raw material for industrial applications. A primary use of it is in the manufacture of polyester resins, films and fibres. In addition, it is important in the production of antifreezes, coolants, aircraft anti-icer and deicers and solvents.
While introducing the project, Qatar had said it would bring in new products, which are completely different from traditional ones.
“This critical petrochemicals project fits well with Qatar’s strategy to strengthen and further diversify its growing chemicals industry and represents an important milestone on our journey to become a significant petrochemicals producer,” QP had said.
Sawan said Shell “greatly valued” its relationship with Qatar. Shell has invested close to $21bn in Qatar in the last few years. “All projects we have successfully completed with QP would not have been possible but for the advice and tremendous support we have received from Qatar’s leadership”.