Qatar has invited Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries and state-run gas utility GAIL India for talks on setting up a USD 1.3 billion mega petrochemical plant.
Qatar has invited billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries and state-run gas utility GAIL India for talks on setting up a USD 1.3 billion mega petrochemical plant in the gas-rich nation.
"I have been told about the interest of GAIL and Reliance in setting up a petrochemical plant in Qatar. They should come (to Doha) to discuss the project details with Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO)," Qatar oil minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said.
GAIL had in July held preliminary discussions with QAPCO and would now discuss the project in more details.
"I cannot give any obligation but we certainly want them to come and discuss details with our downstream company (QAPCO)," he said.
RIL and GAIL had on December 4, 2007 signed an MoU to jointly set up a mega gas-based petrochemical plant. They had initially identified 10 countries -- Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Vietnam, Australia, South Africa, Angola, Mexico, Russia and Former Soviet Union -- for exploring possibilities of setting up a 1.9-million-tonne chemical plant.
"We have now zeroed in on Qatar, Iran, Algeria, Nigeria and Russia," GAIL chairman and managing director U D Choubey had recently said. "We are looking at countries that can provide natural gas as feedstock for the unit."
The two entities will float a special purpose vehicle with equal stake to set up the overseas petrochemical plant.
Reliance and GAIL have set themselves a three-year deadline for identifying and commencing work on the mega petrochemical complex.
The agreement with Reliance is part of GAIL's strategy to expand its petrochemical business. Petrochemical is one of the three core areas identified by U D Choubey after he took over as the head of India's largest gas transmission and marketing company in 2007. Other focus areas being gas transmission and distribution, and city gas distribution.
Petrochemical business, that contributed 32 per cent of GAIL's profit in 2007-08, will add up 40 per cent in the profits this year.
"Petrochemical is our second most important business after natural gas. We are raising capacity of our Pata petrochemical plant to 440,000 tonnes in the next six months (from 410,000 tonnes currently) and want to set up two mega units - one in India and one abroad," Choubey had stated.
The Indian unit is being planned at Vizag in Andhra Pradesh in a five-way joint venture with Total of France, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd, Mittal Energy, Oil India and GAIL. The five are exploring possibilities of setting up a 14--million-tonne-a-year export oriented refinery together with a one-million-tonne petrochemical plant at Vizag.
GAIL has also shown interest in setting up a petrochemical unit in Iran and will be shortly sending a formal proposal to National Petrochemical Company of Iran.
Reliance and GAIL believe that there is a huge demand for petrochemical products worldwide. This would need new capacities and therefore, opportunity of setting up global size petrochemical complexes, preferably gas based, in gas-rich countries is being explored, Choubey had stated.
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