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Research and Markets: Egypt Petrochemicals Report Q1 2012 - Egypt Remains a Ripe Destination for Investment

Business Monitor International's Egypt Petrochemicals Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, petrochemical associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Egypt's petrochemicals industry.

Political uncertainties following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's regime in early 2011 have not upset progress on the expansion of the Egyptian petrochemicals industry, according to BMI's latest Egypt Petrochemicals Report.

Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) reported in September 2011 that the commissioning of Sorfert Algeria is on track and the plant is scheduled to enter commercial production before the year-end. Sorfert will add 1.2mn tpa of urea and 800,000tpa of ammonia capacity. Meanwhile, Egyptian Fertilizer Company's debottlenecking initiatives are expected to be completed by end of Q112. The projects will increase capacity by 250,000tpa to 1.55mn tpa.

BMI believes that Egypt remains a ripe destination for investment in petrochemicals due to the potential for the domestic market, its trading relations with other markets in Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe and the scale of its upstream resources. Egypt's PP market was estimated at 400,000 tonnes in 2011 with domestic production fulfilling less than half of demand. The market has grown at an average of around 8% per annum over the past three years, boosted by growth in downstream industries such as those serving the automotive industry. BMI forecasts 5-7% growth per annum over the next five years, pushing demand to up to 550,000 tonnes by 2016.

In response to rising PP demand, Oriental Petrochemicals Company (OPC) plans to build a 250,000tpa propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit and increase the capacity of its existing PP plant from 160,000tpa to 220,000tpa by end-2015 at a cost of US$450mn. The company has signed a letter of intent to secure feedstock propane gas from the south of the Red Sea by 2015.

Companies Mentioned:

• EChem
• Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals (Sidpec)

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/157bc9/egypt_petrochemica

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