Venezuela, China to build huge petchem complex

07 October 2008 18:16  [Source: ICIS news]

CARACAS (ICIS news)--Venezuela and China have agreed to build the South American nation's largest petrochemical complex following President Hugo Chavez's recent trip there, the state media reported on Tuesday.

Venezuela's state-run Pequiven would oversee the construction of seven plants with a production capacity of 8m tonnes/year of olefins and aromatics, said Jesus Montilla, the governor of Falcon state, according to a report from the Bolivarian News Agency.

The plant would be built alongside the Paraguana Refining Complex and would run on naphtha provided by Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the state-run oil company.

Products would include ethylene, propylene, polypropylene (PP), toluene, benzene and paraxylene (PX).

The complex, scheduled for completion in 2014, is part of a previously announced plan to nearly triple the Venezuela's petrochemical output in the next five years.

Venezuela has been seeking partners for the many scheduled projects, including Iran's National Petrochemical, China's Sinopec and India's Reliance Industries.

This latest partnership was announced following President Chavez's around-the-world trip, during which he visited Russia and China, among others, in an effort to drum up more business from partners other than the US.

In an effort to reduce Venezuela's dependence on the US as a customer, which accounts for more than half of its oil exports, President Chavez announced that his nation would double oil exports to China by next year to 500,000 bbl/day and ultimately reach 1m bbl/day in four years.

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Author: Jasmina Kelemen
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