MOSCOW (MRC) -- Qatar Petroleum (QP) and two Japanese companies, Zeon Corporation and Mitsui & Co Ltd, on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the development of an integrated butadiene extraction and elastomer complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City, reported Bernama.
Under the agreement, the partners will undertake a detailed feasibility study to evaluate the technical, commercial and economic aspects of the integrated world scale butadiene and synthetic rubber/elastomer project. The feedstock will come from the planned Al-Sejeel Petrochemicals Complex and the Al-Karaana Petrochemicals Complex, both of which are currently under development, as well as from the existing plant of Ras Laffan Olefins Company (RLOC).
The butadiene will be extracted from feedstock and then converted into high-value elastomers like styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and polybutadiene rubber (PBR) using Zeons state-of-the-art technology.
The MoU was signed by Qatar's Minister of Energy and Industry and Chairman & Managing Director of QP, Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada; Director & Executive Corporate Officer of Zeon Corporation, Yoshimasa Fushimi; and Representative Director & Executive Vice President of Mitsui & Co Ltd, Seiichi Tanaka.
Meanwhile, Al-Sada expressed his pleasure at the signing of the MoU, describing it as "an important step that adds value to Qatar's natural resources, and creates future value chain opportunities."
"The elastomers from this project will create new opportunities to develop small and medium scale enterprises and private industries in the downstream sector, as well as other automobile related industries.
As MRC wrote before, Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Petrochemical Company signed technology licence contracts for the multibillion dollar Al Sejeel petrochemical complex with Univation Technologies for the polyethylene technology and Dow Chemical Company for polypropylene technology.
MRC