After the Augusta refinery recently acquired in Italy, Sonatrach is pushing ahead in Turkey with, as an almost guaranteed prospect, the establishment of a polypropylene plant on Turkish soil.
The Turkish conglomerate Ronesans Holding and the Algerian company Sonatrach will invest more than a billion dollars in the construction of a polypropylene plant in Turkey. The facility will be built in the Ceyhan Industrial Zone in Adana Province in southern Turkey. This is the first time that Sonatrach’s investment in Turkey has been announced. It was given yesterday by Ronesans Holding President Erman Ilicak, for an investment of $ 1.2 billion in total, Reuters reports. The contract with the Turkish partner will be signed “in the near future”, according to Sonatrach Group CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kadour. “We are well advanced in our discussions with the Turkish partner, and I believe that we will sign, shortly with the Turkish partner for the realization of a propylene unit in Turkey”, specified Mr. Ould Kaddour in a press conference following the signing ceremony of a contract between a Sonatrach subsidiary and the British Petrofac for the increase of gas production capacity of the Tinhert fields. After the Augusta refinery recently acquired in Italy, Sonatrach is pushing ahead in Turkey with, as an almost guaranteed prospect, the establishment of a polypropylene plant on Turkish soil. The public hydrocarbon company continues to reorient its activities internationally. This investment will allow Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour’s group to reduce its imports of propylene products from China in particular. Sonatrach’s Turkish project is also demonstrating the Group’s desire to accelerate its internationalization strategy with the acquisition of the Augusta refinery in Italy as the first element of conquest, the creation of a joint venture dedicated to trading. and the marketing of refined products, the opening of the natural gas export business to foreign partners and the investment in a polypropylene production platform in Turkey. These investments illustrate in any case Sonatrach’s ferm belief that only international investments could offset, in part, the fall in the country’s foreign exchange earnings as a result of the decline in crude prices on the international market. Sonatrach’s strategy, balanced by the reduction of imports of certain products that will be manufactured at its facilities abroad and conquer foreign markets in the field of refining and petroleum products, seems to be winning, at least on paper. In its project in Turkey, in association with Ronesans, Sonatrach will be a shareholder with 30% and will provide the load of 450,000 tonnes of propane for the unit. A memorandum of understanding with the Turkish company was signed in August 2017 for the completion of a feasibility study on a propane dehydrogenation plant project in Turkey. In any case, Sonatrach’s appetite for petrochemicals has never been so fierce, especially at the international level where the group has so far been virtually absent, at a time when many national oil companies were accelerating in the acquisitions and joint ventures able to influence the world of refined products.
Maghreb Emergent
12/01/2018
[Automatic Translation]