Dow-Aramco petchem project start up in 2014

BANGKOK (ICIS news)–Dow Chemical expects to start up its joint venture chlor-alkali project with Saudi Aramco by 2014, a senior Dow official said on Thursday.

The project is part of an integrated petrochemical complex Dow and Saudi Aramco are setting up at Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia.

“We are fully committed to setting up a chlor-alkali project in Saudi Arabia. However, no decision has yet been made on the exact product slate and the capacities at the proposed chlor-alkali complex,” said Cristi Stiers, global marketing director, chlor-alkali for Dow Chemical, on the sidelines of the 12th Asian Chlor-alkali Conference.

Dow was in preliminary discussions with its joint venture partner, Saudi Aramco, to finalise the structure of the project, she said.

State oil firm Saudi Aramco and Dow inked a memorandum of understanding in May 2007 to construct, own and operate a roughly $20bn integrated project. The petrochemical complex will be combined with Aramco’s 550,000 bbl/day refinery and gas processing unit at Ju’aymah.

The project will produce both basic and performance products including ethylene, propylene, aromatic and chlorine derivatives.

Initially, the project scope includes world-scale production units for polyethylene, ethylene oxide and glycol, propylene oxide and glycol, chlor-alkali, polyurethane components, epoxy resins, polycarbonate, amines and glycol ethers.

The two-day conference, organised by ICIS and Tecnon OrbiChem, ends on Friday.

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