Abu Dhabi plans substantial investments in petrochemicals

07-Nov-16

Abu Dhabi Inc plans to grow substantially in petrochemicals as part of its strategy to diversify away from oil through technology-driven industries, as per thenational.ae. State oil company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), last week won approval from the top decision-making body, the Supreme Petroleum Council, to set a target to grow UAE petrochemical output by more than 150% over the next 9 years, to 11.4 mln tpa. At the same time, the energy minister Suhail Al Mazrouei set out a vision for the UAE’s petrochemical interests controlled by the International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic), of which he is the managing director, to aim for ambitious expansion.

The core Abu Dhabi petrochemicals group comprises Borealis, with its main operations in Europe, where it is ranked as the second-largest maker of polyethylene and polypropylene, which are used to produce plastics. Then there is the Borouge joint venture in Abu Dhabi, 60% owned by Adnoc and 40% by Borealis, and also Nova Chemicals in North America, which was acquired by Ipic during the severe downturn in the industry in 2009, when LyondellBasell had to file for bankruptcy protection. The expansion of the UAE’s petrochemicals capacity will follow the fourth and fifth stage phases at Borouge, which will grow output by more than 1.5 times and add product lines as the feedstock changes from ethane gas to mixed ethane and naphtha, a liquid byproduct of the adjacent Adnoc refinery at Ruwais, which itself doubled output last year to 900,000 bpd.