JEDDAH, 21 July 2005 — A new giant petrochemical complex will be constructed in Jubail Industrial City at a cost of $2.4 billion. At a ceremony held yesterday at the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) headquarters in Riyadh, Tasnee Petrochemicals Company (Tasnee), Sahara Petrochemicals Company (Sahara) and the Saudi International Petrochemical Company (SIPCHEM), in partnership with Basell Polyolefins announced the awarding of the Ethylene cracker and utilities project to Linde AG of Germany and Samsung Engineering Company of South Korea.
The ceremony was attended by Prince Saud ibn Abdullah ibn Thunayan, chairman of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY), and Amr Al-Dabbagh, governor of SAGIA, as well as senior industry officials.
“Today’s signing represents a milestone in SAGIA’s vision to promote investments in the strategic petrochemical sector. Given Saudi Arabia’s competitive advantage in petrochemicals, SAGIA aims to promote investments in this industry to double the country’s petrochemical share from the global output which currently stands at seven percent to 13 percent by decade end,” said Al-Dabbagh.
“Awarding this project is a milestone leading up to the realization of this gargantuan petrochemical complex, which upon completion will carry a $2,400 million price tag,” commented Mubarak Al-Khafrah, chairman of Tasnee Petrochemicals.
The project will be constructed in Jubail Industrial City where all the necessary utilities and services are available. The partners have already secured needed allocation of hydrocarbon gases from Saudi Aramco to supply the project with feedstock and fuel. The annual production capacity is 1,000,000 tons of ethylene and about 300,000 tons of propylene using Linde technology.
In addition to the ethylene plant, this large complex will include polymerization plants to produce high and low density polyethylene and polypropylene as well as supplying the ethylene requirements of VAM and polypropylene production.
The complex would require a workforce of around 700 many of whom will be Saudis. Construction work is expected to start by the first quarter of 2006 while operations are to start by the second half of 2008.
