Qatar in $ 350 mm loan for petrochemical project

May 5, 1997 A Qatari company said it has finalised a $ 350 mm deal with international banks to fund construction of a petrochemical project. "Bankers Trust, Banque Paribas and the Export Development Corporation of Canada are the joint co-ordinator of this facility," said a press statement issued by Qatar Fuel Additives Company (Qafac), which is spearheading the project.
Other underwriters for the $ 650 million project are Bank of Taiwan, First Commercial Bank, Chinatrust Commercial Bank Ltd, Gulf International Bank and Japan's Sumitomo Corp.
"The facility was underwritten on April 28 and it is a limited recourse facility," meaning the shareholders will have limited liability to the loan, said the press release. The syndication will open in June and close in September, it said.
Qafac, one of the state's petrochemical projects, is 50 % owned by the government's Qatar General Petroleum Corporation (QGPC) and the rest by three foreign partners.
Taiwan's state-run Chinese Petroleum Corporation holds 20% while Canada's International Octane Ltd and the private Lee Chang Yung Chemical Industry Corp of Taiwan each hold 15 %. The project, in Messeid 48 km (24 miles) off Doha, is expected to produce an annual 850,000 tonnes of methanol and 620,000 tonnes of environment-friendly methanol and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) from mid-1999.
The Taiwanese partners have already pledged to take a third of the output besides their equity stake in the project. Qafac has signed a $ 425 million engineering, procurement and construction contract with Japan's Chiyoda to build manufacturing and storage facilities for the project.