Egypt Scores with Major Industrial Zone and Petrochem Projects

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Egypt is featuring ever more frequently in major project announcements and while the major push comes from energy and hydrocarbon resource based projects there is significant movement in other primary and downstream industries. CPC Egypt, a unit of Saudi Arabia’s Construction Products Holding Company (CPC) has announced the development of a major industrial zone and has signed a contract with Egypt’s general authority for Industrial Development to develop a 1.5 million square meter zone. The zone will allocate specific areas to various industries – 60% to building materials, 20% to foodstuff and 20% to the textile industry.

The zone will be developed in two phases with the first taking about two years to complete including preparation of the site and building the required infrastructure. During this period CPC will initiate a campaign to promote and market the industrial complex to encourage prospective local and international investors. The second phase will include building CPC factories in Egypt for industrial development. When established the complex will create 10,000 jobs.

South Asian Petroleum (SAPL), a subsidiary of India’s Calcutta-based Dhunseri Group, with Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM) is floating a new company, Egypt India Pet Chem. in the next three months. The strategy will be to focus on the export market to take emerging global opportunities. A new manufacturing facility will be started in Danita with an installed capacity of 315,000 tons per annum (tap) of PET in association with a Chinese engineering company. SAPL will hold 70% in the $100 million Egyptian subsidiary. Finance through equity and debt will be raised through Egyptian and European banks. When production commences in 2009 product will go to Western Europe, West Asia and Africa.

In another project, the Bahrain based affiliate of Dana Gas (Sharjah, UAE) will build, own and operate the Gulf of Suez gas liquids plant. The 55 billion cubic feet per annum plant will produce 120,000 tpa of propane and butane. The gas feed for the plant will be supplied by Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) under a long term contract. The quality of the gas supply will allow for the production of 100,000 tpa of exportable international specification propane, representing about 90% of the total gas liquid product from the plant. The propane production is targeted at France, Spain, Italy and Turkey with markets in the Indian Ocean a future possibility. The 10,000 tpa of butane will be sold on long term contract in the domestic market.

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