Historical Overview

Petrochemical industries started in Egypt during the early 1950’s in Suez by the production of ammonia from surplus fuel gas from refineries.  In the early 1960’s, it continued in parallel with the development of a coking plant based on onshore Belayim crude oil to produce dodecyl benzene, the primary material for detergent production.  

In the late 1960’s, it was planned to construct two petrochemical complexes:  Aromatic Complex in Suez and Olefins Complex in Amerya near Alexandria.  Intensive feasibility studies were developed in this respect and it was finally decided to build a plant in Amerya to produce 80,000 tpy of PVC by the end of the 1970’s and production started in the early 1980’s.

This was followed by the construction of two plants for producing 300,000 tpy of ethylene and 200,000 tpy of polyethylene (HDPE,LLDPE).  The production of synthetic rubber primary materials is not yet started (SBR, PBR  - styrene and butadiene which are the two types consumed in Egypt).  These primary materials are imported to produce tyres and other rubber materials.

For synthetic fibers, polyester is imported to produce polyester fibers and yarns.  The plastic material industry was developed based on imported end petrochemical products like polyethylene  and polyvinyl chloride.

Imports started to be used as intermediate materials in the production of final products, for example the ethylene , which was imported till the year 2000 for the production of PVC, started to be produced at Sidi Kerir petrochemical Co. Linear Alkyl Benzene , used in detergents prod, started to be produced locally since 1980 with a capacity of 40.000 tpy.