A new venture to produce titanium sponge and which includes Saudi Arabia’s National Industrialisation Co (Tasnee) will launch commercial operations in the second half of 2017, Tasnee announced.

Tasnee and its subsidiary Cristal jointly own Advanced Metal Industries Co (AMIC), while AMIC and Japan’s Toho Titanium Co own 65 and 35 per cent respectively of their new firm Advanced Metal Industries and Toho Titanium Co.

The new company will have capital of SR412.5 million ($110 million) and produce titanium sponge. The project’s initial capacity will be 15,600 tonnes annually and has an estimated cost of $440 million, Tasnee said in a statement to Riyadh’s bourse.

The statement did not provide more details about the timescale of the project or how it would be funded.

The new company’s commercial launch will be in the second half of 2017 and will form a major part of Tasnee’s downstream value chain, it added. 

Tasnee was established in 1985 as the Saudi private sector’s first fully owned joint stock industrial company, with the aim of advancing the economic diversification in Saudi Arabia. It is today one of the world’s largest producers of titanium dioxide.

The company is strongly committed to technology and innovation and supports product innovation through its Nipras Centre for Research and Development in Jubail Industrial City. It allocates 1 per cent of its profits to support charitable and humanitarian projects in Saudi Arabia.

Cristal now directs the operations of eight titanium dioxide manufacturing plants on five continents with locations in Saudi Arabia the US, the UK, France, Australia and Brazil.