CAIRO, Egypt—The Egyptian government has signed a series of deals to increase the role of the private sector in its economy, including offering stakes in petrochemical and energy-related firms.
Deals include a $803 million (€715 million) package to sell stakes of between 25 percent and 30 percent in three companies to Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ, said Hala Al-Saeed, Egypt's minister of planning and economic development.
This will see ADQ acquire a stake in Ethylene and Derivatives Co. (Ethydco), Egyptian Drilling Co. and Egyptian Linear Alkyl Benzene (Elab), she said in a July 11 statement.
Operational since 2011, Ethydco includes a 460,000-metric-ton ethylene production plant and a 20,000-metric-ton butadiene production unit, using Lummus technology.
In April 2020, Ethydco announced plans to build a 36,000-metric-ton butadiene rubber unit at the facility, based in Alexandria, northern Egypt. At the time, the Egyptian producer said it had awarded a Saipem-led consortium the contract to build the country's first BR production facility, licensed by Versalis.
Scope-of-work for the $150 million rubber project included a single train to produce low-cis polybutadiene and related facilities to be built within 24 months.
According to its website, Ethydco currently manufactures solution polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber and low-cis polybutadiene rubber.
