03-12-08 A $ 2.6 bn joint venture petrochemical plant to be built by Qatar Petroleum (QP) and South Korea's Honam Petrochemical will be delayed by a year due to tight credit markets, a source at Honam said.
"Project financing is a big issue now, which is why we have to push back our project," the source told on the sidelines of a petrochemical conference in Dubai. Completion of the plant would be delayed to at least 2012, he added.

The plant was last scheduled to start up in 2011. When QP and Honam first announced it in 2005, the plant was to begin output in 2009.
Honam said it would invest $ 363 bn won ($ 348.7 mm) for a 30 % stake in the project at Mesaieed Industrial City in 2007. Qatar Intermediate Industries Holdings Company, an affiliate of Qatar Petroleum, would hold the remaining 70 %. Qatar Petroleum would supply ethane and naphtha for the petrochemical cracker, which will have total propylene and polypropylene capacity of 900,000 tpy.

Foster Wheeler won the contract for engineering and design and project and construction management for the plant in October 2007. Crackers process oil product naphtha and ethane gas to produce the basic building blocks for the chemicals and plastics industry.
ExxonMobil has also signed a deal with Qatar to build a petrochemical cracker, with a price tag of $ 3 bn and a 2012 start-up date.