Saudi Petrochemical producers Sahara Petrochemical Co., National Industrialization Co., Acrylic Monomers Co. and Saudi Acrylic Acid Co. have signed agreements to start engineering, procurement, and early construction works at their US$1.07bn acrylic acid project.
The deals were signed with the consortium of Germany's Linde and South Korea's Samsung, the two companies said in separate statements posted on the Saudi bourse website, Tadawul. They added that the project is located in Jubail industrial city in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia.
The technology transfer and marketing contracts have already been signed with U.S-based Rohm and Haas Co., a fully-owned unit of Dow Chemical Co. Dow Chemical Co., which owns 25 per cent of the project is expected to start operations in the first quarter of 2013, according to the statements.
The project has a designed annual capacity of 145,000 MT of crude acrylic acid, 145,000 tons of butyl acrylate, and 85,000 tons of pure acrylic acid, the two companies said. Last December, Sahara awarded a contract to South Korea's Daelim Industrial Co. to construct a caustic soda and diethylene chloride project at Al-Jubail.
The project, when completed and on stream by the third quarter of 2012, will produce 250,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of concentric caustic soda and 300,000 tpa of di-ethylene.
