Established in 1974, Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) is regarded as a unique, pioneering multinational venture which sells its products to customers in the Far East, Indonesia, India and other southern and western Asian nations - in a total of more than 65 markets.

Recognising the importance of its Far Eastern markets, Qapco opened offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in April this year and in Egypt in may.

Qapco - a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum (80 per cent), AtoFina of France (10 per cent) and Italy's Enichem (10 per cent) - began full commercial operation in 1981 and produces ethylene, low density polyethylene (LDPE) - which it sells under the brand name Lotrene - and Prilled Sulphur from ethane feedstock (about 80 million cu ft per day) which is provided by Qatar Petroleum (QP).

With the expansion of the Qapco plant in 1996, the company became the largest producer of LDPE in the Middle East.

Qapco is currently studying the feasibility of setting up a new polyethylene plant, which would take feedstock ethane from a major project offshore Qatar. Qapco and AtoFina have already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with QP and Occidental Petroleum Company for an ethane cracker at Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar.

Qapco has, meanwhile, completed a study to increase its ethylene production capacity from 525,000 tonnes per year (tpy) to 720,000 tpy and carry out debottlenecking of its LDPE plant.

Maintaining its high standards, Qapco's management systems received ISO9002 certification three years ago from Bureau Veritas Quality International in 1998 and Qapco achieved certification of ISO9001:2000 Quality Management Systems (QMS) and ISO14001:1996 Environmental Management Systems (EMS). The company is also setting up an Occupational Health & Safety system to meet the requirements of OHSAS 18001. In line with its position as a leading industry in Qatar, Qapco is committed to providing high quality products, developing value-added technologies through research and development, and ensuring that state-of-the-art logistics are in place to get the products to market.

Last year, Qapco produced 535, 215 metric tonnes of ethylene, 382,029 tonnes of LDPE and 40,873 tonnes of sulphur. Its sales were 54,441 tonnes, 375,453 tonnes and 39,047 tonnes respectively. Approximately 88 per cent of the plant's ethylene output is used for internal consumption to produce LDPE and used as feedstock by Qatar Vinyl Company (QVC). LDPE is also supplied to the Qatar Plastic Products Company.