UpdateSaudi Petro Rabigh achieves on-spec material at new cracker

09 April 2009 04:33  [Source: ICIS news]

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SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company (Petro Rabigh) has achieved on-spec material production of ethylene at its 1.25m tonne/year cracker on 8 April, sources close to the company said on Thursday.

“Trial production at the downstream polyethylene (PE) lines has already been done and they are gearing up for commercial production,” the source said but declined to reveal a date on which commercial production would begin.

Another source close to the company said that on-spec monoethylene glycol (MEG) was expected within this week and cargoes would be available for loading by May.

ICIS news had reported an imminent shutdown of the new cracker on 30 March due to unstable production.

Petro Rabigh’s mega petrochemical complex at Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, houses a 300,000 tonne/year high density PE (HDPE) line, a 250,000 tonne/year easy processing PE (EPPE) unit and a 700,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant.

The complex also includes a 600,000 tonne/year MEG plant and a 350,000 tonne/year LLDPE (linear low density polyethylene) facility.

Petro Rabigh is a $10bn (€7.6bn) joint venture between state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemicals.

($1 = €0.76)

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By: Bohan Loh
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