Egypt to increase its petrochemicals production
Department of Petroleum & Mineral Resources is to spend $19 billion to build 11 new projects between 2020-35 as part of its planned development of the Egypt’s petrochemicals production industry.
The updated petrochemicals plan and strategy come as part of Department’s effort to support long-term global competitiveness of Egypt’s petrochemical industry by helping to increase production of intermediate and finished products that will meet domestic industrial demand for petrochemicals as well as open opportunities for exports to provide improved foreign exchange flow, said minister Tariq El -Molla.
The revised petrochemical program includes a series of previously announced downstream projects, including a series of derivatives and bio-based petrochemical projects, as part of Egypt’s strategy to reignite investment interest in its petroleum industry following sharp declines in activity in the aftermath of the country’s 2011 revolution.
A new project in the pipeline involves construction of a new integrated refining and petrochemical complex at New Al-Alamein City on Egypt’s northwestern coast.
The petrochemicals complex will have crude and condensate processing capacity of 2.5 million tonnes annually for production of a variety of high-quality fuels and other petrochemical products to meet local demand, with any excess for export.
The proposed $8.5-billion Al-Alamein project is designed to produce 1 million tpy of petrochemical products and 850,000 tpy of petroleum fuels.
Detailed studies for the complex were awarded to Engineering Co. for Petroleum & Chemical Industries (ENPPI) also working on preparation of a tender to find a general contractor for the project.
An integrated refining and petrochemicals complex in the Suez Canal Economic Zone is another major project included in the new strategy.
The integrated complex is planned to produce 2.2 million tpy of petrochemical products and 650,000 tpy of fuels, according to El-Molla.
