Qatar’s Qafco to revamp existing fertilizer plants; shrugs off new projects

Qatar Fertilizer Co. (Qafco) is likely to increase output by refurbishing ageing plants, rather than investing in new projects, ICIS quoted chief financial officer, Thomas Schmitz, as saying.

Raising capacity at Qafco I and Qafco 2 units at Mesaieed Industrial City, which came on stream in 1973 and 1979 respectively, may boost the plants' nitrogen fertilizer production by almost 20 percent.

"We are always looking to grow our market share and increase production,” he said, according to ICIS. “Our oldest plants are around 40 years old and I feel it would make sense to upgrade them first, before embarking on major capital expenditure like Qafco VII."

Qafco VII urea and ammonia plant would be the latest addition to the fertilizer exporter's production portfolio, which was last updated in 2012 seeing the operation of the huge Qafco VI plant.

The launch of Qafco VI placed Qafco as the largest single-site producer of ammonia and urea worldwide, with an annual capacity of over 5.6 million tons of urea and 3.5 million tons of ammonia.

A recent unplanned shutdown of Qafco VI’s ammonia unit is expected to end this weekend. The Qafco III ammonia and urea plant will go offline on March 6 for a scheduled turnaround that may last 20-24 days, Schmitz added.

Qafco is the number-one competitor of Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company (Safco) in the Gulf Arab countries. 

The state of Qatar set up Qafco in 1969. The company has operated at a design production capacity of 1,800 metric tons of ammonia and 2,000 metric tons of urea per day.