Qatar Vinyl Company (QVC) is looking into the feasibility of expanding considerably its plant facilities at Mesaieed Industrial City near the capital city of Doha, a senior official has said.

General manager Hamad Al Nuaimi said the company board was encouraged by the start up and successful completion of the initial project itself and by prospects for greater exports to target markets in the next two decades.
Greater availability of feedstock from expansions in other closely linked Qatari companies was also encouraging the company to consider installing facilities for increasing capacity.
“Because of Qapco’s cracker expansion project due to come on stream in 2006 plus the availability of additional ethylene from the Q-Chem/Qatofin cracker during 2008, sufficient ethylene might be available in Qatar to support a potentially large expansion of QVC facilities,” said Al Nuaimi.
Qapco itself is the biggest single shareholder in QVC with 31.9 per cent of the total stock. Other stakeholders are Norsk Hydro, a leading supplier of PVC to Scandinavia and the UK, 29.7 per cent, Qatar Petroleum (QP), 25.5 per cent, and Atofina, one of the world’s top producers of bulk chemicals including PVC, plastics, fertilisers and chlorochemicals, 12.9 per cent. Atofina has a 20 per cent stake in Qapco.
Output of EDC in first-half 2004 was 100,200 tonnes against production of 198,200 tonnes in the whole of 2003 and 202,800 tonnes in the previous year.
VCM production totaled 141,800 tonnes in the first half of 2004 against 278,600 tonnes in 2003 and 227,700 tonnes in 2002. The volume of caustic soda produced in the first half of this year was 341,400 tonnes against 672,800 tonnes in 2003 and 615,000 tonnes in 2002.
The entire production of both EDC and VCM is exported while some 10,000 tonnes of caustic soda is consumed within Qatar itself. Among the export markets for caustic soda are GCC states UAE and Oman.
QVC’s major market is South-east Asia, the Far East, Australia and the Indian Subcontinent. Small quantities are sold in Europe and the US as well as South Africa. The company works through the marketing network of its European shareholders in various countries.
Major customers for EDC and VCM are PVC manufacturers while those for caustic soda are the alumina industry.
“The markets for QVC’s products are mature markets and growth comes mainly from Asian markets. As PVC is mainly used for infrastructure projects, growth largely depends on the economy of the country or region,” said Al Nuaimi.
Discussing industry challenges and trends, he said the PVC and caustic soda industry being cyclic in nature, the main challenge for the producer was to predict demand and future prices for each market and understand the cycle well.
“The recent trend is that these cycles are shorter and more unpredictable. As PVC is infrastructure plastic, growth also depends on economic recovery and the GDP growth rate.”
Al Nuaimi described near-term prospects as “reasonably positive, considering the rather difficult global economic outlook.”