RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has announced plans to set up a SR2.6 billion chemical manufacturing facility, which will be the first of its kind in the Middle East. Senior executives of the National Industrialization Company (Tasnee), Sahara Olefins Company (TSOC) and the US-based Rohm & Haas Company, who toured some of the Tasnee and Sahara production sites in Jubail, made the announcement. The facility is expected to produce 250,000 metric tons of acrylic acid and related esters.
“The Saudi Acrylic Monomers Company will be a joint-venture that will start operation in 2011,” said Mubarak Abdullah Al-Khafrah, chairman of Tasnee, while speaking at a press conference yesterday.
He added that the basic acrylic monomers - acrylic acid and its esters - are versatile chemicals that have widespread use. “The Jubail facility is the first downstream chemical project of its kind to be undertaken in the Middle East with the help of American technology.”
The press conference, which was held at Faisalia Hotel, was attended by a number of senior business executives, business owners and newsmen.
The event was also attended by Pierre R. Brondeau, president and chief operating officer of Rohm and Haas, Moayyed Al-Qurtas, Tasnee’s vice chairman and CEO, Saud Al-Subaihi, Tasnee’s PR manager, and Viral Shah, general manager for planning at Sahara Petrochem.
Spelling out details of the project, Al-Khafrah said that Saudi Acrylic Monomer Company would use the advantaged supply of propylene and the latest process technology to make acrylic acid and related products to support the fast-paced growth of Rohm and Haas’ water-based acrylic products in rapidly developing economies.
TSOC has exclusive rights to sell acrylic acid products within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.