QatarEnergy has broken ground on its Ras Laffan Petrochemical Complex, a mega facility being built at an investment of $6 billion. The complex will house an ethane cracker with a 2.1-million-tons-per-year capacity, making it the largest in the region.

HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar, laid the foundation stone for the Ras Laffan Petrochemical Complex, which will raise Qatar’s overall petrochemical production capacity to about 14 million tons per annum by the end of 2026.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held at Ras Laffan Industrial City, and attended by Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, Mark Lashier, the President and CEO of Phillips 66, Bruce Chinn, the President and CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical, and senior executives from QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical.

The complex will house an ethane cracker with a capacity of 2.1 million tons per annum of ethylene, making it the largest in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world, and raising Qatar’s ethylene production capacity by more than 40 per cent.

It also includes two polyethylene trains with a combined annual output of 1.7 million tons of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) polymer products, raising Qatar’s overall production by about 50 per cent.