ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan is looking for a new partner for the second phase of construction of an integrated gas-chemical complex in the country’s Atyrau province after South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd has quitted the project, Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said in a report on the results of its work in 2015 and plans for 2016.
LG Chem, South Korea’s largest chemical company, late in January said it had decided to abandon its joint project in Kazakhstan due to the continued slump in global oil prices.
“The Kazakhstan project lost its luster because of a steep increase in facility investment amid growing uncertainty. On a business front, LG’s top management reached a consensus that it wasn’t promising,” The Korea Times quoted the company as saying in a statement.
The Energy Ministry said that the Kazakh side in the project is currency looking for a new strategic partner that has experience and expertise in implementing projects of such a scale.
Back in 2011, LG Chem set up a 50-50 joint venture with Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries (KPI) to jointly invest $4.1 billion to construct a polyethylene plant to produce 800,000 tons of products per year.
KPI is 51-percent owned by KazMunayGas Exploration Production, an upstream oil production unit of Kazakhstan’s state oil and gas company KazMunayGas, and the privately owned company SAT owns the remaining 49-percent stake.
The plant was planned to be built near the western Kazakh city of Atyrau.
