World-scale project in Oman: KfW IPEX-Bank financing for Liwa Plastics

KfW IPEX-Bank is contributing a loan of USD 179 million to the project financing of the major Liwa Plastics LLC petrochemical project in Oman. The funds will be used by the project company to finance part of a steam cracker for the cracking of natural gas. This high-tech facility forms the core of the petrochemical complex. The components will be supplied from the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea. So the export credit agencies Atradius, Euler Hermes and K-Sure – alongside UKEF, KEXIM and SACE – are guaranteeing the loan, which has a term of 16 years, for the respective supplies. Alongside KfW IPEX-Bank 19 local and international commercial banks will contribute to the overall financing.

A large facility for the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other petrochemical building blocks will be constructed in the Sohar Industrial Port area on the Gulf of Oman in the North of the country. These building blocks, which are produced from abundant natural gas available in Oman, are used in various downstream industries, for example in the production of film, bottles or plastic parts. There will be four construction packages for Liwa Plastics: a natural gas extraction plant, a 300-kilometre pipeline, the central steam cracker being co-financed by KfW IPEX-Bank and the downstream production plant for bulk plastics. The world scale facility is the biggest petrochemicals project in Oman and one of the largest individual projects ever in the Sultanate. The total investment cost for Liwa Plastics is in the region of USD 6.4 billion, 65 % of which will be provided by the banks.

Orpic Plastics LLC is a subsidiary of the state-owned Oman Oil Refineries & Petroleum Industries Company SAOC (ORPIC), Oman's largest refining and petrochemicals company. The state-owned company employs around 2,000 people at its five production sites.