A general view of Qafco’s 50th anniversary celebration gala dinner held at National Museum of Qatar on Monday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula
The visiting Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Norway, Prince Haakon Magnus yesterday lauded the 50 years of successful business cooperation between Qatar and Norway. The Crown Prince also highlighted Qatar’s policy of multilateralism and international partnership in addressing key challenges such as global warming and sustainable development goals.
The Crown Prince also noted the contribution of Norwegian companies which are involved in a variety of industrial sectors in Qatar, including energy, maritime, and other industries. He also expressed his gratitude to Qatari leadership and Qafco, which celebrated its 50 years of partnership with Norwegian companies.
The Crown Prince also said that Norway and Qatar are different in many ways but there are many commons between the two countries such as both the nations believe in multilateralism and are committed partners of many international organisations, and frequently engage in resolving global issues.
“We also cooperate in many other areas including the challenges of global warming and sustainable development goals, which unites the two countries,” noted Crown Prince Haakon in his address at a gala dinner on Monday.
The gala dinner event, held at the National Museum of Qatar, marked the 50 years of partnership between four giant companies from Norway (YARA, Hydro, Equinor and KONGSBERG) and Qafco.
About 250 distinguished guests and representatives gathered in attendance, including the HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, H E Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs, President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, Torbjørn Røe Isaksen Minister of Trade and Industry for Norway and Abdulrahman M Al Suwaidi, CEO of QAFCO to reflect on the successes over the past half-century and the propitious future for the Qatari-Norwegian industrial partnership. Guests and dignitaries were also treated to a special performance by Norwegian artist Eva Weel Skram.
The function not only commemorated the semicentennial collaboration, but also celebrated the strengthening of a continued, strategic alliance between the two countries to further develop over the next 50 years to come.
After an abundance of gas resources were found in Qatar in the sixties, YARA, back then a part of Norsk Hydro, signed a joint-venture agreement with Qatar to build a production plant to produce ammonia and urea in Mesaieed. This led to the truly pioneering establishment of Qafco (Qatar Fertiliser Company). Progressive to both nations, the formation of QAFCO was one of the first large-scale venture into the petrochemical sector and was also the first major investment a Norwegian company had contracted abroad.
President and CEO of YARA International, Svein Tore Holsether said: “Half of the world’s population depends on fertilizer to have food on the table. The contribution from QAFCO to global food security has been very important, and today the products are exported worldwide. We are committed to working towards sustainable mineral fertilizer production. Yara has taken the lead in developing digital farming tools for precision farming and we work closely with partners throughout the whole food value chain to develop more climate-friendly crop nutrition solutions.”
Yara International ASA was divested from Hydro in 2004, making it a sheer fertilizer business. Hence Hydro’s ownership in QAFCO was passed on to Yara. In 1997 Hydro became part-owner in Qatar Vinyl Company (QVC), a petrochemicals company. Ten years later Hydro spun off its petrochemical activities and today Hydro no longer has any ownership stakes in QVC.
“Over the 50-year history in Qatar, Hydro has been the enabler of several world-class industrial projects and the first industrial partner to Qatar offering access to leading technologies as well as world-class competence and resources in engineering, construction, operation and commercial activities. The focus has been in efficiently and innovating natural resources into various products and solutions. Every day we strive to make aluminum part of the solution to the greatest challenge of our time,” said Hilde Merete Aasheim, CEO of Hydro.
