IPIC's Fujairah, plans to go ahead with building refineries in Pakistan and UAE

[LahoreEstate]

ABU DHABI (June 15 2009): Abu Dhabi's government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) plans to go ahead with building refineries in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, IPIC's chief executive said on Sunday The group was studying how to integrate operations at the two plants, Khadem al-Qubaisi told Reuters in an interview.

"We are moving with the (Fujairah) project, but we are reviewing it carefully because ...we are also establishing a refinery nearby in Pakistan," Qubaisi said. "We (had) to think of the integration of the two refineries, so it took more time."

Last year IPIC, which invests in oil-related projects for the government of Abu Dhabi, said that the Fujairah refinery would have a capacity of under 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to save costs. The refinery was originally planned for 500,000 bpd.

"At that time we had proposed a big size, now we have decided for a reasonable size because of the location and crude configuration," Qubaisi said. IPIC was setting up a company in Pakistan and would then proceed with the project management and construction phase of the refinery project there, he said. "Because of the situation in Pakistan now, it is a bit slow... We will go ahead," Qubaisi said.

In January IPIC said it was delaying plans to set up the Khalifa Point refinery in Pakistan. Last year the group's board approved plans to build a $5 billion refinery with a capacity of 250,000 bpd in Pakistan. Work on constructing a crude pipeline from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah that would bypass the Strait of Hormuz was on track, Qubaisi said.

"This is a strategic project for the government of Abu Dhabi and it cannot be delayed by any (financial) crisis," he said. The pipeline would initially have a capacity to pump 1.5 million bpd, with an option to increase capacity to 1.8 million bpd. It would pump crude from the Habshan oilfields to the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman. The pipeline would allow the world's third-largest oil exporter to pump around 60 percent of its crude exports without using ships to sail through the Strait, a strategic shipping checkpoint.

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