Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) has invited bids for the construction of a 50,000 tonnes-per-year polyoxymethylene (POM) facility at its affiliate Ibn Sina in Jubail, eastern Saudi Arabia.

POM, also known as acetal, polyacetal and polyformaldehyde, is an engineering thermoplastic used in precision parts that require high stiffness, low friction and excellent dimensional stability.

National Methanol Co, better known as Ibn Sina, is 50 per cent owned by Sabic while Celanese Corp and an affiliate of Duke Energy Corp each have a 25 per cent-stake.

Companies invited to submit bids by October 24 are Spain’s Dragados, China National Chemical Engineering Co, Taiwan’s CTCI and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering, Daelim Industrial, Hanwha Engineering and SK Engineering and Construction.

In 2010, when Sabic signed an agreement with Celanese to develop the project, it said the investment was expected to be nearly $400 million. It said then the plant would go online by 2013 with engineering and construction work starting by 2011.

The facility will use methanol feedstock from Ibn Sina to make POM, largely used in the automotive industry.

Sabic is building a $3.4 billion synthetic rubber project in Jubail in a joint venture with Exxon Mobil Chemical, a unit of ExxonMobil, riding increased transport demand and vehicle use in the region, Africa and Asia.

POM FEATURES, ADVANTAGES
POM is supplied in a granulated form and can be formed into the desired shape by applying heat and pressure. The two most common forming methods employed are injection moulding and extrusion. Rotational moulding and blow moulding are also possible. Typical applications for injection-moulded POM include high-performance engineering components such as gear wheels, ski bindings, fasteners and lock systems and the material is widely used in the automotive and consumer electronics industry. There are special grades that offer higher mechanical toughness, stiffness or low friction/wear properties.

POM is commonly extruded as continuous lengths of round or rectangular section. These sections can be cut to length and sold as bar or sheet stock for machining. POM is characterised by its high strength, hardness and rigidity and is intrinsically opaque white due to its high crystalline composition, but it is available in all colours.

POM advantages are summed up as high abrasion resistance, low coefficient of friction, high heat resistance, good electrical and dielectric properties and low water absorption.