GPCA ’06: Sumitomo to market Rabigh output

18 December 2006 03:41  [Source: ICIS news]

DUBAI (ICIS news)--Sumitomo Chemical, the Japanese major, will market the output from its Saudi Arabian refinery and petrochemical joint venture project outside the Middle East, a source close to the project said late on Sunday.

 

“Saudi Aramco will be appointing Sumitomo as a distributing agent outside the Middle East since the Japanese company has a good global marketing network, the source said on the sidelines of the two-day Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) forum.

 

“However, the sale of product within the Middle East will be undertaken by Saudi Aramco.”

 

Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co (PetroRabigh) is a 50:50 joint venture between state-owned Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical.

 

The project at Rabigh will have an 18.4m tonne/year refinery and a cracker that will produce 1.3m tonne/year of ethylene and 900,000 tonne/year of propylene.

 

It has achieved 45% mechanical completion and is on track to go on stream in October 2008, the source said.

 

Plants downstream of the cracker will produce 750,000 tonne/year of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), 700,000 tonne/year of polypropylene (PP), as well as propylene oxide (PO), monoethylene glycol (MEG) and alpha-olefins.

 

The GPCA forum ended on Sunday.

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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