GPCA '06: Shell to up Mid-East, Asia investment

By Nurul Darni

 

DUBAI (ICIS news)--Shell Chemicals aims to employ more capital in the Asia and the Middle East in the next few years as growth in these regions will be faster than elsewhere in the world, a senior company official said on Saturday.

 

"We plan to increase our capital employed in Asia and the Middle East over the next maybe five to six years. We believe these are the two main growth areas, especially in the area of chemicals," said Aman Amanpour, president of Shell Chemicals Arabia, in an interview with ICIS news.

 

The shift in capital employed from the U.S. or Europe will mostly be achieved through its various overseas projects and some through existing joint venture projects the company already has, Amanpour said.

 

In Asia, Shell Chemicals has $4.3bn petrochemical joint venture with China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC)  at Daya Bay near Huizhou, China, and a world-scale cracker project in Singapore. In the Middle East, the company has various ongoing chemical projects in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states.

 

"There is huge potential demand in Asia and the Middle East and as standards of living also improve, chemical demand will grow at a much faster pace," he said.

 

China is expected to consume more than 31m tonnes of polymers by 2010, followed by India, which is expected to cross over 10m tonnes of polymer consumption by 2010, analysts have said recently.

 

Plans are also afoot for the construction of a third world-scale styrene plant in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, currently called Styrene 3 project, which will increase current production by more than 60%, Amanpour said. The plant is expected to start up during the first half of 2008 as per scheduled.

 

This will give the company the highest production of styrene of any single site in the world, he added. Styrene 3 will add some 720,000 tonne/year of production to Sadaf's existing production of 1.1m tonnes/year.

 

Shell is also looking to start up its new 1.3m tonne/year ethylene cracker project in Ras Laffan, Qatar in early 2011 or 2012.

 

The cracker will use ethane as feedstock and supply of ethane will be sourced domestically from Qatar which has huge gas reserves and projects, he said.