Qatar Petrochemical Company’s polyethylene production will scale up to 700,000 tonnes per year (tpy) by 2011-end, Qapco general manager Dr Mohamed Yousef al-Mulla has said.

“The production boost is achieved through the LDPE 3 plant, which is being set up at Mesaieed,” al-Mulla told Gulf Times yesterday.

Qapco’s two existing low-density polyethylene (LDPE) production lines account for about 400,000 tpy.

Al-Mulla said Qapco’s ethylene production capacity would also scale up to 1.4mn tpy following the expansion. Currently, Qapco produces 800,000 tpy of ethylene.

Al-Mulla said linear low-density polyethylene producer Qatofin would attain full capacity in the coming months with Ras Laffan Olefins Company supplying it the required ethylene feed stock.

Qatofin is a joint venture involving Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) (63%), Total Petrochemicals of France (36%) and Qatar Petroleum (1%).
It has been designed to produce 450,000 metric tonnes per year of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE).

Qapco, which commenced commercial production in 1981, is jointly owned by Qatar Industries (IQ) with 80% share and Total Petrochemicals (France) with 20% share.

(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)