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Latest Update: Friday6/11/2009November, 2009, 12:35 AM Doha Time
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Qafco to boost output of urea
By Pratap John
Chief Business Reporter
Qatar Fertiliser Company’s urea output will reach 5.6mn tonnes per year (tpy) with the completion of Qafco-6
by the third quarter of 2012, managing director Khalifa al-Sowaidi has said.
Qafco will then account for roughly about 15% of “world’s traded urea”, he said on the sidelines of the engineering,
procurement and construction contract awarding for Qafco-6 in Doha yesterday.
Currently, Qafco’s urea output is about 3mn tpy.
Qatar Fertiliser Company awarded the $610mn EPC contract to a consortium of Italy’s Saipem and South Korea’s
Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company.
Qafco6 plant will come up at the fertiliser major’s Mesaieed facility. It will have a urea plant with a design capacity of
3,800 tonnes per day (tpd) and a granulator unit with 3,850tpd design capacity.
The other facilities include a urea granules storage with a capacity of 175,000t, material handling system with a
capacity of 1,000 tonnes per hour (tph), additional seawater cooling cells, and steam and power generation facilities.
Qafco chairman Abdulla H Salatt said Qafco-6 construction works would take about 35 months to complete. Besides
Saipem and Hyundai, the main contractors, a number of international and national construction companies will take
part in the project as sub-contractors.
“The project will help create job opportunities for nationals and enables Qafco’s existing Qatari employees gain more
expertise in the design, construction and operation and large-scale industrial projects. The project also puts into
effect the country’s economic policy, which entails optimal utilisation of the nation’s gas resources, expansion in the
petrochemical sector to bolster up the country’s economy and give further impetus to the development process,”
Salatt said.
Saipem and Hyundai have been working at the Qafco-5 project, which is under construction.
Qafco-6 was based upon Qatar Fertiliser Company’s “successful” business experience in the last four decades and
Qatar’s huge reserves of natural gas. The project was launched after a detailed study covering all the technical,
economic and financing aspects.
Qafco has gained “rich experience” in the implementation of major fertiliser projects such as Qafco-3, which went on
stream in 1997, Qafco-4 (2004) and Qafco-5, which is under construction.
With the latest expansion, there are tremendous prospects for Qafco to meet the rising demand for fertilisers,
particularly urea, in North America, Asia and Australia. Qafco’s latest production facilities and strong marketing arm
will also help it reach its products in the target markets.
Currently, Australia and Thailand are the largest markets for Qafco’s urea. South America and Brazil would become a
key export market in future. Qafco exported about 80,000t of urea to Brazil last year.
Al-Sowaidi said given the growing importance of the Indian market, Qafco planned to open an office in the country.
The company said the adoption of state-of-the-art technology would help Qafco-6 cut down on unit production cost,
boost its profitability and make it a key player in the global fertiliser market.
“The design and engineering of the project facilities have taken into account the various environmental considerations
and ensured compliance with the highest standards of safety,” Qafco said.
The agreement was signed for Qafco by Salatt while for the consortium it was inked by Varone Pietro, Saipem chief
operating officer (Onshore Business Unit) and J H Kim, Hyundai chief operating officer (Plant Division).
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