From correspondents in Emirates, United Arab Emirates, 07:02 PM IST

Qatar will have the world's largest aromatics plant within two years and a multi-million dollar memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Qatar Holding Intermediate Industries Company, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, and South Korea's Honam Petrochemical Corporation in this regard.

"We are giving a boost to the petrochemical industry by getting into production of aromatics besides increasing ethylene production," the Gulf Times quoted Qatar Deputy Premier Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah as saying at the Mesaieed Industrial City where the new project is going to come up.

Besides aromatic compounds, the project will also see production of propylene, polypropylene, styrene and polystyrene.

Al-Attiyah said Qatar's petrochemical production would scale up to 18 million tonnes a year by 2012.

Qatar, which has the world's third largest gas reserves, is investing billions of dollars to build petrochemical plants to take advantage of surging global demand for plastics, solvents and ethylene, particularly in China and India.

Al-Attiyah said Qatar would become the world's fourth largest producer of petrochemicals within five years.

"We have not classified aluminium or steel production under petrochemicals," he said.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)