DMEA: Borouge expansion announced

This week’s DMEA covers the expansion of Abu Dhabi’s key polyolefins plant and calls to cancel a pipeline connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) this week signed a $6.2bn investment agreement with Austria-based Borealis for the Borouge joint venture’s fourth facility in the UAE’s Ruwais downstream hub.

Borouge 4 is expected to become operational by the end of 2025 and feedstock will be supplied by ADNOC, while Borouge polyolefins (PO) will be used as feedstock for ADNOC’s world-scale TA’ZIZ chemicals complex within the company’s Ruwais Derivatives Park.

ADNOC said that the new facility will use Borealis’ proprietary Borstar technology to produce a portfolio of products that can be used in energy, infrastructure, advanced packaging and agriculture.

The agreement was signed between UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC managing director and CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber and Borealis CEO Thomas Gangl.

Al Jaber said: “ADNOC and Borealis’ significant investment in the fourth expansion of Borouge ensures the long-term and sustainable supply of core materials to critical sectors vital to both the UAE and global economy.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar this week called for the cancellation on environmental grounds of a deal to develop an oil transmission project to pipe Emirati oil from the Red Sea directly to the Mediterranean.

An agreement was signed in October 2020 for RED MED Land Bridge Co., a joint venture between Israel and the UAE, to repurpose the assets of the Europe Asia Pipeline Co. (EAPC) – formerly Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co. – to transport UAE-origin crude oil and oil-related products from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean without traversing either the Suez Canal or the Strait of Hormuz, providing that the crude was exported from the eastern emirate of Fujairah. This has the benefit of expediting oil transit but environmental groups have said the ecological risks are unacceptable.