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Qatar Said to Mull Ending Chemical Project With Exxon
Qatar, which signed an agreement with Exxon Mobil Corp. in January to jointly build a $6 billion petrochemicals complex, may choose a different partner for the project, an official at state-run Qatar Petroleum said.
Qatar Petroleum will select as a partner the company that makes the best proposal, said the official, who declined to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the issue. The Qatari energy company and Exxon Mobil have ended their agreement and Qatar is seeking new partners, Middle East Economic Digest reported, citing people close to the companies.
Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, speaking today outside his office in the Qatari capital Doha, declined to comment on the petrochemicals project. “I will tell you later,” he said when asked if Qatar would try to build it with a different partner.
Jeffrey Neu, a Houston-based Exxon Mobil spokesman, said in an e-mail that the company continues to work with Qatar Petroleum on the project, repeating comments he made last month.
The project represents the biggest single energy investment in Qatar since Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced plans in July 2006 to build its $19 billion Pearl gas-to-liquids plant.
The planned petrochemical facility is to include a 1.6 million-ton-a-year steam cracker, two 650,000-ton polyethylene plants and a 700,000-ton ethylene glycol unit. Construction was to have been completed by 2015, Exxon and Qatar Petroleum said in January.
Qatar aims to raise its annual production of petrochemicals to 28 million tons by 2014 by making use of its rising output of natural gas, a feedstock for chemicals manufacturing, Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in May. Qatar, holder of the world’s third-largest gas reserves, plans to pump 23 billion cubic feet of gas a day by 2014.
Exxon Mobil is the largest investor in Qatar’s plants that liquefy natural gas for transport by ship, with partial ownership in 12 of the country’s 14 plants. Exxon is also an investor in a Qatari condensate refinery. Other international oil companies that have invested in Qatar include Shell, ConocoPhillips and Total SA.
Total owns stakes in four Qatari facilities that liquefy gas and is a shareholder in Qatar Petrochemical Co. and Qatofin Co.’s so-called linear low-density polyethylene plant. Qatofin owns part of a new 1.3 million-ton-a-year ethane cracker.
To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Tuttle in Doha at rtuttle@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net
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