Governor of Madinah region Prince Miqren bin Abdul-Aziz launched a breakthrough Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) developed acetic acid technology plant at a ceremony held at "IBN RUSHD Complex" in this industrial city on Tuesday, Arab News reported today.
The announcement that the technology involved was 100 percent Saudi and the first of its kind worldwide was greeted by guests and invitees with loud applause.
Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu and SABIC Chairman Prince Saud bin Thunayan Al-Saud, SABIC Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Al-Mady, as well as high ranking SABIC officials and presidents of SABIC affiliates were among those present.
Prince Saud bin Thunayan expressed his utmost appreciation and gratitude to Prince Miqren for supporting the event and referred to his continuous support for SABIC and its industries.
"The new project is of strategic importance as it will strengthen the integrity of the operations within the IBN RUSHD complex and elsewhere in the Kingdom as acetic acid used to be imported," he said.
"The project also features the application of a pure Saudi developed technology, which is the first of its type worldwide. It is based on the oxidization of ethane and differs from the conventional methanol-based technology," he added.
Al-Mady said the coming on stream of the acetic acid plant was a great economic feature and would provide increased profitability. "The success of the new technology encourages SABIC to expand commercial production to meet the downstream needs in the domestic market and strengthen the Kingdom's image in the global export of technologies market.
SABIC, the world's 11th largest petrochemical company, is expanding its operations in the Middle East to meet the fast growing demand for the petrochemical segment, especially in intermediates and polyolefins. "We're currently the second largest producer of ethylene glycol in the world and SABIC will become the number one producer in 2006. By 2006, SABIC will have a total ethylene glycol production capacity of 3.9 million metric tons per year and meet over 22 percent of global demand," according to SABIC's Vice President for Intermediates, Khaled Al-Mana.
SABIC now supplies over 16 percent of the world's mono ethylene glycol (MEG) needs and exports some 75 percent of its production to Asia. "When 630,000 metric tons come on stream at Jubail United Petrochemical Company (UNITED) by the end of this year, UNITED will be the world's biggest ethylene glycol plant," Al-Mana said.
SABIC's current and planned investment for overall production expansions exceeds $8 billion and aims to increase overall annual production from 43 million metric tons in 2004 to more than 60 million metric tons by 2008.
