INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - DECEMBER 1^st - DECEMBER 15^th - 2007

GAIL, RIL SIGN MOU FOR PETROCHEMICAL PROJECT ABROAD

Reliance Industries and Gail have joined hands to set up a multibillion dollar petrochemical plant in gas-rich Middle-East, Central Asia or Russia. "It will be a mega petrochemical plant with a capacity of 1.9-2 million tonnes," Gail CMD U D Choubey said from Mumbai after his firm signed an agreement with Reliance for exploring possibility of setting up the petrochemical complex. complex. Reliance, the nation's largest petrochemical maker, and Gail will jointly study opportunities in Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Algeria, Nigeria and former Soviet republics for the petrochemical complex, he said while indicating that the two firms were in all likelihood forge an equal partnership. "We have formed a joint working group to select sites in three countries by March," Choubey said. "We may also jointly take up integrated project involving production of feedstock and then converting it into value added products." Natural gas or naphtha are likely to be the feedstock for the plant and the two companies, if allocated a gas field in the target countries, will look at jointly developing it and converting the gas into petrochemical.