Basell signs Tasnee & Sahara Olefins jv agreement

11 May 2006 17:41  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Basell said on Thursday it had signed the joint venture agreement for its planned integrated ethylene and polyethylene complex in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia with partners Tasnee & Sahara Olefins Company.

It will have a 25% equity share in the project. Tasnee & Sahara Olefins Company will hold the remaining equity in the venture, a recently established joint stock company with Tasnee Petrochemicals and Sahara Petrochemical Company as major shareholders and a minor shareholding held by the Saudi Arabian General Organisation for Social Insurance (GOSI).

The venture's petrochemicals complex is planned to include a gas cracker and two 400,000 tonne a year polyethylene plants and is scheduled for start-up in 2008. The Hostalen process high density polyethylene (hdPE) plant and the Lupotech T process-based low density polyethylene plants will be the largest of their kind in the world.

Earlier on Thursday, Italian engineering group Tecnimont said it had won a $630m (Euro495m) contract to build the two polymer units.

“This project is part of our strategy to expand our geographic presence by establishing, together with strong local partners, new world-class manufacturing facilities with attractive feedstock conditions in close proximity to target markets,” said Basell chief executive Volker Trautz..

Basell and Tasnee Petrochemicals already have another joint venture in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Polyolefins Company, which is developing a 450,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant and propane dehydrogenation unit at Al-Jubail..

In April, Basell, the world’s largest polyolefins producer, signed a memorandum of understanding with KazMunayGaz (KMG) and SAT, a privately-owned industrial and commercial conglomerate, for a petrochemicals complex to be built in Kazakhstan..

By: Nigel Davis
+44 20 8652 3214

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