By THE AFRICA BAZAAR Staff Writer
General Electric and Carbon Holdings signed a $500 million agreement that will allow GE to provide new technology and equity support to a new petrochemicals plant in Egypt.
The deal will help strengthen GE’s presence and partnerships in Egypt, where it has had a presence of over four decades.
“We are proud to support key customers with technology and capital that can accelerate productivity and address the increasing demand for infrastructure and industrial development,” said John Rice, GE’s Vice Chairman. “GE’s advanced technologies will be an ideal fit for the project, which will create new jobs for Egyptian youth and boost the manufacturing and exports sector of the country.”
As part of the partnership, GE will provide equity financing and advanced technologies to the Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex’s greenfield naphtha cracker and olefins complex project located in Ain Sokhna, Egypt as part of an integrated package of solutions to meet the country’s needs.
The new technologies for the new plant include advanced aero-derivatives gas turbines, steam turbines, generators, water filtration and desalination equipment, turbo machinery compressors and industrial solutions services.
With a capacity of 1,360,000 tons per annum of ethylene and polyethylene, as well as significant quantities of propylene, benzene, butadiene and linear alpha olefins, the plant is said to be as the world’s largest naphtha liquid cracker.
Featuring a power, water desalination and water treatment plant, the complex will employ a combined cycle power plant to generate 300 MW of power. The full-fledged water desalination plant, featuring GE’s proprietary ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis technology, has a generation capacity of 3,800 cubic meters per hour.
The new plant has the potential to drive Egypt’s overall economy with two key contributors: construction and manufacturing sectors.
In addition to direct jobs at the plant, the local availability of the plant’s products will also contribute to energizing ancillary industries, thus creating thousands of indirect jobs.
During a ceremony, Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, Egypt Minister of Industry & Foreign Trade said, “Egypt is focused on providing a strong and business-friendly environment for investors. In addition to facilitating easy procedures that promote industrial investment, we are also committed to bring advanced technological partnerships that can benefit our youth and all-round economic growth.”
He added that GE’s senior executive visit to the country and the company’s partnership on the largest industrial project of its kind in Egypt highlights growing investor confidence, “The project will be a strong value addition to our economy.”
During the construction phase, the project will employ over 20,000 professionals and skilled workers in addition to creating several thousands more indirect jobs. It will also add another 3000 high-skilled jobs once operational for engineers and technicians.
Once completed, the project is expected to generate annual revenue of $6 billion to help strengthen the country’s overall annual exports by over 25 per cent.
“Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex marks our vision to further strengthen the petrochemical sector of the country, and strengthen foreign direct investments. Developed through global partnerships, the new plant will contribute to the socio-economic growth of Egypt, bringing the newest technologies for greater energy sector efficiencies and creating new jobs,” said Basil El-Baz, chairman and chief executive officer of Carbon Holdings.
