Qatar to Appoint Consultants for Financing of Petchem Plant

Qatar Petroleum is about to hire consultants for the financing of a $6.5 billion petrochemical plant to be built in partnership with Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), the state energy company’s director of finance said.

Banks and export credit agencies will be an important source of credit for the Al Karaana complex, Abdulrahman Ahmad Al-Shaibi said today at a press conference in Doha, the Qatari capital. “We are also looking into other sources of financing such as the capital markets and Islamic banking,” he said.

Financing will be sought once the engineering and construction contract is signed, he said, without specifying a date or identifying the consultants to be hired. Qatar Petroleum and Shell awarded the engineering and design contract for the plant to Fluor Corp. (FLR) of Irving, Texas.

Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, seeks to diversify its economy away from petroleum exports by building industrial plants that make petrochemicals, aluminum and steel. Al Karaana, 80 percent owned by Qatar Petroleum and 20 percent by Shell, will be built in the industrial city of Ras Laffan and completed by 2018, Qatar’s Energy Minister Mohammed Bin Saleh Al Sada said.

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 on sev@bloomberg.net