Update: petrochemicals in the Gulf

Petrochemical production in the Gulf is expected to double from US$ 40 billion to US$ 80 billion by 2020. Producers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and UAE have expanded into petrochemicals alongside other industries to lessen their reliance on the income generated fro crude oil exports. Khalid Al-Falih, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, said that the real challenge the region faced was not the growth to US$ 80 billion, but ‘fundamentally altering its economic role […] within the global petrochemicals landscape’. Saudi Aramco plans to bring it largest gas plant, Wasit, online in 2013; a year earlier than expected. The company’s oil production capacity increased last year to 12 million bpd. Across the region as a whole, the production of petrochemical has risen by an average of 3.7% in the last year, which Qatar reporting the highest increase of 7.4%. The country plans to expand its petrochemical production to 28 million tpy by 2014. Qatar is currently in dialogue with Total and Shell for a petrochemical plant. The project is estimated at approximately US$ 6 billion.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/14122010/update_petrochemicals_in_the_gulf/