Sabic closes Technip deal

25 February 2002 00:00  [Source: ICB]

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) has signed an agreement with Technip for the design and construction of its planned acetic acid plant.

The facility is said to be the first based on Sabic's acetic acid technology, which involves the oxidation of ethane. The ethane will be supplied by Saudi Aramco. The production plant is set to have a capacity of 30 000 tonne/year and is slated to start up in the second quarter of 2004.

The unit will be located in the industrial city of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, at the site of Sabic's Arabian Industrial Fibres Company Complex (Ibn Rushd) - the acetic acid will be used captively by Ibn Rushd.

Having been unable to obtain a commercial licence for acetic acid technology, Sabic developed its own process over seven years at its Industrial Complex for R&D in Ryiadh.

Sabic's process package includes a catalyst and a novel oxidation reactor design. The company has said that it will continue to refine the technology in order to achieve improvements in performance, and will consider building a 200 000 tonne/ year plant.

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