Yanbu, which already contains 54 plants and has seen several expansions in recent years, is the location for two new major projects - ExxonMobil and Zinc Oxide Company.

"Many applications seeking investment were received during the last few months including one from World Petroleum Company," said Yanbu director-general for operations and maintenance Mubarak A. Al Mubarak.

Yanbu is served by a 1,200km pipeline, which carries 4.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude and 280,000bpd of NGL.

The Yanbu plants include nine in the basic industries sector and these are operating in the fields of petroleum, petrochemicals and aromatics.

Ten are listed in the secondary industries category with projects related to fiberglass, chemicals and solvents and 35 are characterised as light and support industries.

Existing companies include Yanpet I producing 400,000 tpy of ethylene glycol, 20,000 tpy of propylene and 500,000 tpy of polyethylene and Yanpet II expansion, which was completed in the first quarter of this year.

The Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Company, using ethane gas as feedstock, produces 400,000 tpy of ethylene glycol, 500,000 tpy of LLD and HD polyethylene and 20,000 tpy of propylene.

The Yanpet petrochemical complex is a 50-50 joint venture between Exxon Mobil and Sabic, which is 70 per cent owned by the Saudi government.

Sabic said the $2.6 billion expansion added to its output capacity 420,000 tpy of ethylene glycol, 535,000 tpy of polyethylene, 260,000 tpy of polypropylene and 125,000 tpy of pyrolysis gasoline as well as 800,000 tpy of ethylene cracker.

Sabic's Polymers Group president Fahad Al Sheaibi said Yanpet's new capacity was vital to increasing Sabic's annual production capacity to 35 million tpy this year, from around 28 million tpy in 2000. "It significantly strengthens Sabic's position in the global markets for polyethylene, polypropylene and ethylene glycol," he added. Sabic is implementing programmes to increase its annual capacity to 48 million tonnes by 2010. In January, ExxonMobil and Sabic completed a $1 billion expansion of their joint venue Kemya petrochemical plant on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast. Kemya and Yanpet are part of ExxonMobil Chemical's $5 billion worldwide capital investment programme.

Also in Yanbu is the Saudi Aramco natural gas liquid fractionation plant. Using natural gas liquids as feedstock, the plant produces 171,000 bpd of ethane, 114,000 bpd of propane, 57,000 bpd of butane and 49,000 bpd of natural gasoline. There are several other factories operating in the area.

Coming out of the Saudi Aramco -Mobil Yanbu (Export) Refinery Company (Samref) are 7,4000 bpd of propane, 55,000 bpd of jet fuel, 110,000 bpd of diesel oil, 128,000 bpd of gasoline, 64,000 bpd of fuel oil and 325 tonnes per day of sulphur.

The Saudi Aramco Yanbu (Domestic) Refinery produces 171,000 bpd of ethane, 114,000 bpd of propane, 57,000 bpd of butane and 49,000 bpd of natural gasoline.

The Arabian Industrial Fibers Company (Ibn Rushd) aromatic plant, using butane as feedstock, produces 725,000 tpy of xylene and benzene.

Ibn Rushd produces 150,000 tpy of polyester yarn, fibre and chips. The Ibn Rushd purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant produces 350,000 tpy of product.

Other major industries are National Titanium Dioxide Company (Cristal) with a production of 70,000 tpy of titanium dioxide pigments and National Industrial Gases Company (350,000 tpy of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, krypton-xenon.

Yanbu covers a total area of 185 sq km and is provided with a 905 MW power plant, a desalination plant of capacity 96,760 cu m per day and an industrial waste water treatment plant having a total capacity of 24,000 cu m per day of which 13,300 cu m per day is actually utilised. There is a sanitary wastewater treatment plant, which operates at 18,483 cu m per day while the designed capacity is 27,000 cu m per day.

The infrastructure includes a water-cooling plant of capacity 400,000 cu m per day while only 261,305 cu m per day are utilised. Yanbu is well served by the King Fahd Industrial Port, which has seven cargo and container berths, two chemical and two bulk cargo berths as well as seven refinery berths, four berths for oil exports and two for NGL.