Egypt to Increase Chemical Production for Home and Abroad

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry plans to increase exports to $36.3 billion by 2013. Chemical and petrochemical exports are expected to represent 21% of the total. Increased investment will be made into building new projects in these sectors and at the same time upgrading and modernizing existing plants.

In 2010, Egypt will increase investment in petrochemicals projects by pumping in $2 billion to construct a new project in Alexandria. The new plant will crack ethane, a component of natural gas, breaking it down into the chemical ethylene, which will be used to produce the basic plastic polyethylene. The complex will produce 750,000 to 1 million tons per year of ethylene. This project is in the bidding stage to select the engineering procurement construction (EPC) contractor, as many international companies are interested. In December 2010, commercial bids were expected to be opened. However, bid bond validity for the EPC contract was extended until March 2011.

This week, another project was announced, requiring an investment of about $1.2 billion. It is the first project implemented by Egyptian Petrochemical Holding Company (Cairo) after the January 25 revolution. The project will be implemented over 36 months and will produce 460,000 ton per year of ethylene, based on ethane-propane gas from the Western Sahara complex in Alexandria in order to maximize the added value to the Egyptian natural gas.

Egypt launched the building and construction of these new projects as the second phase of the plan to develop and increase chemical and petrochemical products to meet local demand and increase exports to Africa and other markets globally. About $5billion will be invested in this field in the first phase and most of these projects are located on coastal areas such as Port Said, Damitta and Alexandria.

At a conference last week, Dr. Samir Alsayad, Egypt's Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, said that exports of chemical fertilizers in 2010 amounted to $3.9 billion, which represented 22% of Egypt's total exports.

The minister added that despite the events in January and February this year, chemical and fertilizer exports increased by 23% in comparison to the same period last year and went to several markets, such as France, Turkey, China, Britain, Libya and Saudi Arabia, while the African market was absent from the list.

Alsayad stressed that the ministry was making a plan to focus on the African market in this regard, pointing out that during the visit of the Egyptian delegation, headed by Dr. Essam Sharaf, to see the acting prime minister of Sudan recently, investors had shown a great enthusiasm for increasing investments in Egypt and the volume of trade exchange between the two countries in this sector.

The head of the export council of the chemical industry said at the conference that African markets will have a large share of exports of chemicals and fertilizers, products pointing out that a delegation of 25 representatives of the major chemical and fertilizer companies from the council will move next week to visit many African countries such as the Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya.

It is noteworthy that this is the first conference organized by the export council for the chemical industry following the revolution of January 25. The participants represented a large number of major chemical and fertilizer companies in Egypt. Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. IIR's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.