Proman venture lands US$2 billion for UAE methanol project

AN­DREA PEREZ-SOBERS

Se­nior Re­porter

Pro­man says its glob­al foot­print is set to grow even larg­er af­ter the com­pa­ny and its Abu Dhabi-based part­ner se­cured US$2 bil­lion in fi­nanc­ing for what will be­come the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates’ first world-scale methanol plant.

In a re­lease sent this morn­ing, Pro­man said the fi­nanc­ing for the TA’ZIZ Methanol Com­pa­ny project in Al Ruwais In­dus­tri­al City was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed, sig­nalling strong in­vestor con­fi­dence in the petro­chem­i­cal ven­ture and in the fu­ture de­mand for methanol as both an in­dus­tri­al chem­i­cal and clean­er-burn­ing fu­el.

The project is a joint ven­ture be­tween TA’ZIZ and Pro­man, the Trinidad-linked methanol gi­ant head­quar­tered in Switzer­land with ma­jor op­er­a­tions based at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in Cou­va. Pro­man is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s largest methanol pro­duc­ers, op­er­at­ing sev­er­al lo­cal plants with an an­nu­al pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty of about 4 mil­lion tonnes.

The fi­nanc­ing pack­age in­cludes a five-year US$1.8 bil­lion con­ven­tion­al syn­di­cat­ed loan and a US$200 mil­lion Is­lam­ic fi­nanc­ing fa­cil­i­ty. Eleven re­gion­al, Eu­ro­pean and Asian fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed in the deal.

Sum­it­o­mo Mit­sui Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion act­ed as ex­clu­sive fi­nan­cial ad­vi­sor, while Abu Dhabi Com­mer­cial Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank served as bookrun­ners and man­dat­ed lead arrangers.

TA’ZIZ CEO Mashal Saoud Al-Kin­di de­scribed the fi­nanc­ing as a ma­jor mile­stone for Abu Dhabi’s in­dus­tri­al ex­pan­sion plans.

“This land­mark fi­nanc­ing marks a defin­ing mo­ment for TA’ZIZ and for Abu Dhabi’s next phase of in­dus­tri­al growth. The strong glob­al de­mand for this trans­ac­tion re­flects our dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion, the strength of our part­ner­ships, and the long-term fun­da­men­tals of the Ruwais in­dus­tri­al ecosys­tem.”

Pro­man Chief Ex­ec­u­tive David Cas­sidy said the fi­nanc­ing re­flect­ed grow­ing con­fi­dence in methanol’s fu­ture role in glob­al en­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing mar­kets.

“This is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward for the project and a ma­jor ad­vance­ment in our part­ner­ship with TA’ZIZ. The strong in­vestor in­ter­est in this trans­ac­tion un­der­scores mar­ket con­fi­dence in methanol’s growth tra­jec­to­ry, both as a key chem­i­cal and as a clean­er-burn­ing fu­el for trans­porta­tion and pow­er gen­er­a­tion. It al­so po­si­tions Abu Dhabi as a fu­ture glob­al hub for methanol pro­duc­tion.”

Cas­sidy said Pro­man’s mar­ket­ing arm, Valenz, has se­cured ex­clu­sive rights to mar­ket the methanol pro­duced at the fa­cil­i­ty once op­er­a­tions be­gin.

“Pro­man is proud to be a par­ty to this world-class joint ven­ture. We are al­so de­light­ed that Valenz will mar­ket the methanol ex­clu­sive­ly, fur­ther strength­en­ing our of­fer­ing to our glob­al cus­tomers.”

Pro­man Trinidad Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Anand Rag­bir said the project fur­ther deep­ens links be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the UAE, while al­so high­light­ing the role lo­cal ex­per­tise con­tin­ues to play in the com­pa­ny’s glob­al op­er­a­tions.

“This is very ex­cit­ing news for the whole Pro­man fam­i­ly, un­der­lin­ing con­fi­dence in the growth tra­jec­to­ry of methanol glob­al­ly. There are al­ready strong ties be­tween the UAE and Trinidad and To­ba­go, and mem­bers of our lo­cal team con­tin­ue to pro­vide skills and ex­per­tise to this project.”

Rag­bir said once the UAE plant comes on stream, Pro­man’s glob­al methanol pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty will climb to nine mil­lion tonnes an­nu­al­ly.

“Once the plant in the UAE is op­er­a­tional, it will ex­pand Pro­man’s glob­al pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty to 9m tonnes, 4m of which are here in Trinidad.”

The project is tar­get­ed for com­ple­tion in the third quar­ter of 2028 and is ex­pect­ed to pro­duce 1.8 mil­lion tonnes of methanol an­nu­al­ly once op­er­a­tional.