QatarEnergy makes the largest investment in its history in the Qatar petrochemical sector

QatarEnergy has announced the Final Investment Decision (FID) with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC to build the Ras Laffan Petrochemicals complex, a US $6 billion integrated olefins and polyethylene facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City.

The announcement was made in Doha in a special ceremony during which His Excellency Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, and Bruce Chinn, the President and CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical, signed the agreement for a joint venture company to implement the project.

QatarEnergy will own a 70% equity share in the project while CPChem will own a 30% share. The signing ceremony was attended by Mark Lashier, the President and CEO of Phillips 66, and senior executives from QatarEnergy and CPChem.

QatarEnergy also announced the award of the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the ethylene plant to SCJV, a joint venture company between Samsung Engineering Company Ltd. of South Korea and CTCI of Taiwan.

The scope of work for Samsung Engineering includes furnaces, C2 hydrogenation, hydrogen purification unit and three main compressors, the company said in a separate statement. CTCI will be in charge of the utility infrastructure, including steam/condensate collecting and boiler feed water, among others. The project is expected to be completed in late 2026, it said.

The EPC contract for the polyethylene plant was awarded to Maire Tecnimont of Italy, while Emerson was awarded the main automation contract.

The Ras Laffan Petrochemicals complex, expected to begin production in 2026, consists of an ethane cracker with a capacity of 2.1 million tons of ethylene per annum, making it the largest in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world, QatarEnergy said in a statement.

It also includes two polyethylene trains with a combined output of 1.7 million tons per annum of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) polymer products, raising Qatar’s overall petrochemical production capacity to almost 14 million tons per annum.

In remarks at the signing ceremony, H.E. Al-Kaabi said: “This marks QatarEnergy’s largest investment ever in Qatar’s petrochemicals sector and the first direct investment in 12 years. It will double our ethylene production capacity, and increase our local polymer production from 2.6 to more than 4 million tons per annum, and place the utmost emphasis on sustainable growth and the environment.”

“There is no doubt that this cornerstone investment in Ras Laffan Industrial City marks an important milestone in QatarEnergy’s downstream expansion strategy. It will not only facilitate further expansion in the downstream and petrochemical sectors in Qatar, but will also reinforce our integrated position as a major global player in the upstream, LNG, and downstream sectors,” he said.

“This will be further enhanced once the new world-scale petrochemical project in Orange, Texas, in the United States of America comes online in partnership with Chevron Phillips Chemical, executed by our joint venture Golden Triangle Polymers Company,” His Excellency added.

According to the minister, QatarEnergy was delighted to enter into the new venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical. “Together, our large and diverse portfolio will not just help meet the world’s growing needs for advanced plastics and petrochemicals, but will also enable balanced growth and facilitate human development in a responsible and sustainable manner. I would like to thank everyone who has worked to reach this milestone. We are also grateful to the leadership and guidance of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his unwavering support to Qatar’s energy sector,” the minister said.

The final investment decision comes less than two months after QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical took the Final Investment Decision to execute the $8.5 billion Golden Triangle Polymers Plant on the US Gulf Coast in Texas.