Saudi Arabia’s Sadara starts up 1.5m tonne/year mixed-feed cracker

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–Sadara Chemical Company (Sadara) started up on 28 August its 1.5m tonne/year mixed-feed cracker in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, the company said in a statement.

The cracker is part of the $20bn Sadara chemical complex at the Jubail Industrial City II, and is the only facility that cracks naphtha in Saudi Arabia.

The mixed-feed cracker has 12 furnaces, seven of which will be used to crack ethane (gas), while the remaining five will be used to crack naphtha (liquid), and three of the five liquid furnaces can switch between gas and liquid feedstock, Sadara said in a statement issued on Sunday.

The Sadara chemical complex will have derivative units that will produce polyethylene (PE), elastomers, isocyanates, polyether polyols, amines, glycol ethers, propylene oxide and propylene glycol.

Fourteen of the 26 units at the complex “will deliver products that are completely new to being produced in the Kingdom”, Sadara said without providing further details.

The rest of the units at the complex are on track for completion by the end of this year.

“Sadara’s products will help fill a significant gap in a regional chemical industry dominated by commodity products, with less than 1% of petrochemical production currently defined as specialty chemicals,” said Sadara CEO Ziad Al-Labban.

“The introduction of the specialty petrochemicals and chemicals will help support the drive to broaden the secondary and tertiary petrochemical manufacturing landscape in Saudi Arabia, thus making the Kingdom a leading cornerstone to meet the growing demand for specialty products locally and regionally,” Al-Labban said.

Sadara’s products will also be utilised by downstream plants in the adjacent PlasChem Park, which is a collaborative effort between Sadara and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu.

Sadara is a joint venture firm between oil giant Saudi Aramco and US-based Dow Chemical.

Picture: Sadara’s mixed feed cracker at dawn (Source: Sadara website)