The Gulf region’s first ilmenite processing plant for producing high-grade slag used in the production of titanium dioxide is to be set up by Cristal at Jazan Economic City (JEC) in southwest Saudi Arabia at a cost of $ 550 million (SR2.062 billion).
Ilmenite is a primary titanium-iron oxide mineral used for the manufacture of titanium dioxide. Slag is stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore, in this case, ilmenite.
The slag to be processed to between 85 and 92 percent purity in JEC will be used for producing titanium dioxide at Cristal’s titanium dioxide plant in Yanbu, which was established in 1991 and is the biggest in the region. Titanium dioxide is used in a wide variety of everyday consumer products such as paints, papers, plastics, inks, rubber, etc.
In its first stage, Cristal’s JEC ilmenite smelter will produce 500,000 tons of high purity ilmenite slag and 250,000 tons of high purity pig iron (HPPI) as a by-product, which will go to the steel mills of Saudi Arabia – another first for the Kingdom.
“The Jazan smelter will go on stream next year and it will the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia,” said Dr. Talal Al-Shair, chairman and CEO of Cristal. “The smelter’s production capacity can be doubled to 1 million tons and the supply will go to the local market for the first time. Moreover, the output will be vey competitive at a time of international shortage in high-grade titanium dioxide ore.”
Cristal, the world’s second largest producer of titanium dioxide, has already launched a program for training Saudi cadres through an agreement with a London-based school for teaching English. Additionally, the Jeddah-headquartered company, which operates seven manufacturing plants, two mines and three R&D facilities in six countries on five continents and employs nearly 4,000 people worldwide, has a continuous career development program being offered through the Cristal Academy, the only global institution of its kind to impart specialist knowledge about the titanium industry.
Al-Shair expects 75 percent of the 312 jobs to be created over the next five years in its JEC cluster of projects to be filled by Saudi nationals.
Omar Al-Najjar, Cristal Vice President-Human Resources, said the company would deploy its international experts and technical staff to train young Saudis on the latest technologies used in the industry.
Steel demand in the Saudi market has increased by 10 percent and is expected to keep rising as a result of government spending. Domestic demand is around seven million tons while local production is only five million tons.
With the cost of infrastructural projects set at $ 400 billion, there is constant demand for increased production capacity in energy, steel and cement to cater for the growth. Local steel production is put at 4.7 million annually.
