Yansab's new cracker begins trial runs, start-up in end-July

15 July 2009 10:54  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Saudi Arabia's Yanbu National Petrochemical Co (Yansab) has started trial runs at its new 1.3m tonne/year cracker this week, with the start-up of the whole petrochemical complex expected in end-July to early August, sources close to the company said on Wednesday.

“We intend to feed the raw materials into the cracker around 22 July, and then hopefully the downstream plants would run about one week after,” said one of the sources.

Test runs at Yansab's 700,000 tonne/year MEG unit so far yielded "satisfactory" results, said another source.

Besides the cracker and the MEG plant, the petrochemical complex houses a 900,000 tonne/year polyethylene (PE) plant and a 700,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) facility.

The schedule for commercial production at the complex remains uncertain, the sources said. Traders, on the other hand, said Yansab could start exporting products next month.

The start-up of petrochemical complex has been pushed back several times although Yansab did not provide reasons for the delays.

With addtitional reporting from Prema Viswanathan and Peh Soo Hwee

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By: Salmon Aidan Lee
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