Corrected: Saudi Kayan starts up ethanolamines, ethoxylates plants

19 April 2012 08:21  [Source: ICIS news]

Correction: In the ICIS news story headlined "Saudi Kayan starts up ethanolamines, ethoxylates plants" dated 19 April 2012, please read in the second paragraph ... one of the world's largest ... instead of ... the world's largest .... A corrected story follows.

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Saudi Kayan Petrochemical, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical major SABIC, has started up its ethanolamines and ethoxylates plants and aims to achieve on-spec production in the coming weeks, a source from SABIC said on Thursday.

The ethanolamines unit located at Al Jubail is one of the world’s largest, with a nameplate capacity of 100,000 tonnes/year, while the ethoxylates plant at the same site has a capacity of 40,000 tonnes/year, he added.

Saudi Kayan aims to increase the operating rates at the units in phases over the next few months, with a priority on stable operation, the source said.

SABIC has made supply agreements with its major customers via four regional sales offices: Asia-Pacific, India/Middle East/North Africa, Europe and North America, the source said.

“Every region has a different product focus according to the nature of demand in the region,” the source said. For example, more diethanolamines (DEA) will be sold in North America because the material is used widely for wood preservatives and glyphosate, while less DEA will be sold in Europe because the use of DEA-based surfactants is restricted in the region.

China is a key market for SABIC and around 40-50% of Saudi Kayan’s ethanolamines production will be supplied to the country, particularly diethanolamines (DEA) and triethanolamines (TEA) for use in the surfactant, cement, polyurethane (PU), textile/rubber/metal processing sectors, a second company source said.

China’s ethanolamines consumption was at around 366,000 tonnes in 2011, 65% of Asia’s total demand and one fifth of global consumption.

Ethanolamines and ethoxylates, the two major derivatives of ethylene oxide (EO), account for 6% and 13% of the global EO consumption respectively. Ethylene glycol (EG) is the largest downstream product of EO, which takes 72% of EO consumption. Other EO derivatives are EG ethers, polyols and polyethylene glycol (PEG).

By: Becky Zhang
+65 6780 4359

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