Statoil has taken arms-length approach to petrochemicals

L.R. Aalund
Managing Editor-Technology

Although Norway has only a tiny petrochemical industry, Statoil has international exposure to the business and its technology through its 50% ownership in Borealis AS, Europe's leading producer of polyolefins.

Borealis has production of about 3 million metric tons/year. The company owns or has an interest in steam crackers in five European countries.

Statoil supplies a portion of Borealis's feedstock slate. Statoil is, as noted in the accompanying article (p. 29), intent on upgrading its sizable natural gas and NGL resources.

A notable move in this direction is its participation with Norske Conoco AS in the 830,000 ton/year methanol plant at Tjeldbergodden, Norway. The 3.4 billion kroner plant-Europe's largest methanol plant-started up in June 1997.

Gas feed

The Tjeldbergodden methanol plant is the only site in Norway using natural gas in a process unit. The feed gas gets there via a 16-in., 250-km pipeline from Heidrun field.

The 1.6 billion kroner line was, for a time, exclusively dedicated to the methanol plant. It now deelivers 700 million cu m/year and feeds a small 20 ton/day LNG plant and a unit that makes "bioprotein" from methane and oxygen via a Danish process.

The protein is produced by cultivating bacteria that feed on gas. Per Kotte, a Statoil spokesman, says that, after drying, the product is brown and contains 78% protein. Approval has been granted to feed animals with it. Kotte says several food companies are interested, and it is hoped it will be approved for human consumption as well.

A second train is being readied this month to produce an additional 40,000 tons/year. He says a 2-year study showed that demand is adequate to support the expansion.

Kotte described the prospect for other units at Tjeldbergodden in terms of traffic signal lights: Electricity generation from natural gas, an ammonia plant, and another methanol production train all have possibilities and are getting a yellow light, he said. Facing a red light, with little prospects for realization, are a large-scale LNG plant and methyl tertiary butyl ether and formaldehyde plants.

Borealis

Statoil's partners in Borealis could open some interesting avenues for development of Norwegian petrochemicals.

Borealis began as a joint venture of Statoil and Neste Oy, the Finnish state oil company. Neste later sold its share, and the ownership is now Statoil 50%, Austria's OMV AG 25%, and International Petroleum Investment Co. (IPIC) 25%.

These are the stakes of OMV and IPIC, taking into account the fact that IPIC owns 19.6% of OMV. OMV has been partially privatized, and the Austrian state now holds only 35% of the company. IPIC is Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.'s (Adnoc) entity for investing in projects outside the U.A.E.

This past spring, Borealis and Adnoc agreed to build a complex at Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, that will include a 600,000 ton/year ethane cracker and two 225,000 ton/year polyethylene units. The polyethylene plants will employ Borealis's proprietary Borstar technology.

The complex is slated for start-up late in 2001. It will be owned by a new company, Abu Dhabi Polymers Co. Ltd., owned 60% by Adnoc and 40% by Borealis.