ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - UAE Interact

154UNITED ARAB EMIRATES YEARBOOK 2006ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT155founders, and 35 per cent offered to the public through an IPO. Dana Gas is the firstprivate-sector gas resource company in the region to be publicly listed, and plans tofocus on the growing natural gas business in the Gulf and beyond. It will start withsubstantial assets in the gas chain, including established business interests in gassupply, transportation, processing, and marketing, and with revenues andprofitability expected from the company’s first year of operations. There areplans to expand the business into related projects throughout the Gulf region,including into the upstream exploration and production of natural gas, anddownstream into gas-related industries and petrochemicals.Ra’s al-KhaimahRa’s al-Khaimah is reported to have natural gas reserves of 1.2 trillion cubic feet.Following a number of years in which the Saleh field produced limited quantitiesof both oil and gas, the field switched to production of just condensate (currentlyproducing 700 b/d). The LPG plant at Khor Khwair in Ra’s al-Khaimah now getsits feedstock from the offshore Bukha field in Oman. An Australian company, NovusPetroleum, began exploration work in the second half of 2003, completing a150-kilometre 2D seismic survey. Novus is hoping that it will discover wet gason its 600-square-kilometre onshore tract.The Ra’s al-Khaimah government signed an agreement in October 2004 withDEL for supply of 40 mmscf/d of natural gas. Initially supplies are reachingRa’s al-Khaimah from Oman, but this will switch to Qatari gas when that comeson-stream.FujairahFujairah has no gas production facilities of its own, but its requirements for theQidfa desalination plant are met by the Dolphin project that is supplying gas viaDEL pipelines.AjmanA petroleum production sharing agreement was signed between Sharjah andAjman in early July 2002 to jointly develop the Zora field, a gas reservoir locatedaround 40 kilometres off the two coasts. Chinese-owned Crescent Petroleum andAtlantis, which hold the concessions from the two respective governments, werealso signatories to the agreement. Production is to be shared equally between theparties concerned but by mid-2005 development had not commenced.Umm al-QaiwainSinochem, owners of Atlantis Holdings, who hold the offshore concession forUmm al-Qaiwain, are continuing to evaluate options for the development of gasreserves identified in the UAQ3 well. Recoverable reserves are estimated at upto 500 billion cubic feet of gas and 5 million barrels of condensates.PETROCHEMICALS AND FERTILISERSAbu DhabiAbu Dhabi has several major petrochemical and fertiliser industrial complexes,the Ruwais Fertiliser Industries Company (Fertil), the Abu Dhabi Polymers Company(Borouge), and Abu Dhabi Fertiliser Industries Company (Adfert). Fertil wasestablished to utilise lean gas supplied from onshore fields at Bab, Asab andThamama C to produce fertilisers and market them locally and internationally.It brought its existing nitrogenous fertiliser plant in Ruwais on-stream in April 1984.This consists of a 1050 t/d ammonia plant and a 1500 t/d urea plant, but they haveoperated at over 130 per cent of capacity in recent years (1310 t/d of ammonia and1850 t/d of urea). The emirate is planning to grow this sector, both as a result ofexisting facilities expansion and through establishment of new projects that willproduce derivatives such as melamine, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene, polyvinylchloride (PVC), vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), linear alpha olefins and aromatics.Adfert commenced production from a plant situated in Mussafah in June 1998.This plant can produce up to 200,000 t/y of water-soluble and granular compoundfertilisers. It also produces liquid and suspension fertilisers.Borouge’s petrochemical complex in Ruwais cost an estimated US$1.2 billionto develop and includes a 600,000 t/y ethane cracker that supplies ethylenefeedstock to two 225,000 t/y polyethylene units. Borouge produces up to 580,000tonnes of Borstar bimodal high-, medium-, and linear low-density polyethyleneper year. Combining good processability with excellent mechanical properties,Borouge Borstar products are stronger, lighter, environmentally friendly and moremalleable than conventional polyethylene, resulting in material savings of up to30 per cent.Notwithstanding its excellent results to date, Borouge has significant expansionplans. It is planning to develop a larger petrochemical complex with annualproduction capacities of 1.4 million tons of ethylene, 540,000 tons of polyethyleneand 800,000 tons of polypropylene.In addition to promoting its own polyethylene products, Borouge also overseesthe distribution and marketing of Borealis’s entire range of polyolefins in theMiddle East and Asia Pacific. These products include polyethylene for extrusioncoating, moulding, and wire and cable, as well as polypropylene for film, moulding,hot water pipes and engineering applications.Borouge was originally established by ADNOC (which held 60 per cent) andBorealis (in which the Abu Dhabi government also held a stake). Changes to thisshareholding structure were initiated in 2005 when the International PetroleumInvestment Company (IPIC), wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government, signeda purchase agreement to take complete control of Borealis by purchasing theremaining 40 per cent stake held by Statoil. IPIC is mandated to participate as