March 25 (Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the Hong Kong-listed company known as Sinopec, won a contract to build a $1.7 billion polypropylene plant in western Kazakhstan.
Sinopec agreed to buy and export all the polypropylene produced at the facility, Kazakh Deputy Oil and Gas Minister Aset Magauov told reporters today in Almaty. The Export-Import Bank of China will provide a $1.26 billion loan for the project, he said.
TOO Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries, 51 percent held by the London-traded unit of state-owned KazMunaiGaz National Co., will invest $300 million of its own money, and Kazakhstan will provide a "budget credit" of $140 million, Magauov said.
The polypropylene plant will form part of a gas chemicals complex, which will be able to produce 450,000 metric tons of polypropylene and 800,000 tons of polyethylene a year once completed in 2014, according to KazMunaiGaz. LyondellBasell Industries AF SCA, which Kazakhstan had sought as a partner for the project, filed for bankruptcy last April.
David Harpole, a LyondellBasell spokesman in Houston, said March 19 that the company had informed the partners of its withdrawal from the venture.
