Suez Canal Economic Zone signs $2.6bn petchem deal

The Suez Canal Economic Zone has signed a $2.6 billion contract to build an international methanol and ammonia production complex in Ain Sukhna in Egypt, on the western shore of the Red Sea.

The project will be implemented in two phases, with the first ending in 2025 at a cost of about $1.6 billion. The second, at an estimated cost of $1 billion, will do so over three years.

The production capacity of the first phase is estimated at 1 million tons of methanol and 400,000 tons of ammonia annually, according to a statement.

The complex aims to export all of this, in line with Egypt’s plan to increase exports of petrochemical products, the head of the economic zone, Yahya Zaki, said.

The complex will provide about 1,200 direct and indirect job opportunities, Zaki added.

Canal revenues

Egypt expects an 11 percent hike in the revenues from the Suez Canal during the first half of 2022, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie said in a TV interview on Monday.

The chairman and the managing director of the Suez Canal Authority said he expects a commercial boom in the coming period with demand for the channel growing by 11 percent during the next six months.

Rabie said the canal’s revenues during 2021 until the first half of December reached $6 billion, a 13 percent increase as compared with the previous year.