Chevron Chemical & Qatar Petroleum In New $1 Billion Petrochemical Complex

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Q-Chem, the Qatar Chemical Company, has launched a new petrochemical complex in Mesaieed, Qatar. Q-Chem is a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum (51%) and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (49%).

More than one billion dollars is being invested to engineer, construct, and commission the Q-Chem facility which will complete its first full year of commercial operation by the end of 2003 with a labor force of over 500.

The Q-Chem facility will be a world-class petrochemical plant producing high density polyethylene (HDPE), metallocene linear low density polyethylene (LDPE) and hexane-1 (alpha olefin) and other associated by-products using the latest technology provided by Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CPC).

The Mesaieed industrial city complex will target markets in Europe, Asia, China, and India with output from a 500,000 ton per annum ethylene plant, a 462 000 ton per annum polyehylene plant (273 000 tons per annum high density polyethylene and 183 000 tons per annum low density polyethylene) and a 47 000 tons per annum hexene-1 plant.

Other associated process and offsite units will include a sulfur recovery and solidification plant, a bagging and storage warehouse, a nitrogen plant, a waste water treatment plant, waste incinerator, sea water cooling system, dock facilities and various administration and office buildings.

The second phase of the project, Q-Chem II, will include the construction of a new polyethylene and normal alpha olefins (NAO) plants adjacent to the existing Q-Chem complex. Both processes will use Chevron's proprietary technology.

The third project phase will be the construction of an ethane cracker in northern Qatar at Ras Laffan industrial city. This cracker will provide ethylene feedstock to the derivative units in Measaieed via pipeline. The cracker venture will include Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Atofina (PARIS:TOTF) (Paris, France) through their new Qatofin joint venture and QP and CPC through their Q-Chem II joint venture. Phase 2 and 3 projects are expected begin operation in 2007.

The Q-Chem facility will meet or exceed all environmental standards of the state of Qatar governing water, solid waste, air emissions, noise, spill prevention and control, as well as ongoing monitoring of plant performance.

QP is state owned and is responsible for all oil and gas industry processes in Qatar and abroad. This includes drilling for oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbon substances, production, refining, transport and storage of these substances and of any of their derivatives and by-products, as well as trading in, sale and export of these substances.

CPC is owned equally by Chevron Texaco Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (San Francisco, California) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) (Houston, Texas)