Purple patch for Muscat’s chemicals ambition

The commissioning of Oman’s largest petrochemicals plant has coincided with Saudi Arabia’s potential rescue of an even bigger one

December may go down as a seminal moment in Oman’s long-held ambitions to create a world-scale petrochemicals industry. The government’s flagship $7bn Liwa Plastics Industries Complex (LPIC) was belatedly inaugurated by state-owned OQ at the northern industrial city of Sohar—the sultanate’s traditional downstream centre—more than doubling national polymer capacity. Potentially more importantly, and certainly more unexpected, Saudi Arabian petchems behemoth Sabic formally agreed to consider taking over the role of foreign partner on a faltering project to integrate an even larger petrochemicals facility with the greenfield refinery under construction at Duqm, a fledgling economic hub on Oman’