A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a joint-venture PE plant has been signed between Kazakhstan’s Unified Chemical Company and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company. The MoU will look at the technical and economic feasibility of building a complex in the Atyrau special economic zone in Kazakhstan.

The agreement follows an official visit by Kazakhstan’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to the United Arab Emirates last January when negotiations about a petrochemicals’ cooperation were started.

Kazakhstan’s government is trying to develop its petrochemical industry to meet domestic demand. It estimates that imports account for more than 70% of domestic petrochemicals consumption currently. The country is aiming to primarily build new plants to produce polymers, such as PP and PE. Last October, Kazakhstani newspaper Astana Times reported that Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries and China Development Bank had signed a $2 billion loan agreement for a gas chemical complex that would produce 500,000 t/y PP.

Mubadala Investment Company was created by the merger of Mubadala Development Company and International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) earlier this year in a bid to cut costs. Its assets include stakes in Spanish energy group Cepsa, Austrian polyolefins group Borealis and Canada’s Nova Chemicals.