ABC is adviser to Jubail project
Saudi-based Project Management and Development Company (PMD) has named Arab Banking Corporation as advisor to the proposed $3.5 billion petrochemical project in the kingdom.
Privately owned PMD estimates that the olefins and amines plants in Jubail will create around 1,500 jobs. They will produce polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene glycol, benzene, phenols, methyl amines and derivatives, ethanol amines and ethoxylates.
Saudi Aramco and Sabic will supply the main feedstock such as butane, methanol and ammonia.
The Royal Commission in Jubail earlier assigned to PMD a plot for the amines plant. The company has filed a request for a plot for the olefins project.
A memorandum of understanding has also been signed with Germany’s Linde to act as technical advisor to the project. Construction is expected to start at the beginning of 2005 and end by late 2007.
Saudi businessmen and engineers wholly own Jubail-based PMD.
Aluminium venture revived
Oman has revived a $2.5 billion aluminium venture with the completion of a new feasibility study. A foreign company has been offered a majority stake to help build the plant.
Oman Oil Company (OOC) and its partner, Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (Adwea), are assessing the findings of the study, according to a Dubai press report. A project official said the two would form a company to build the plant with a shareholding of 49 per cent. OOC and Adwea had offered a 51 per cent stake to an international aluminium company to join them as partner.
The official said the venture would have a dedicated power station to fuel the project. The initially conceived production of 530,000 tonnes per year was under revision. “Everything has gone under close scrutiny and revision. The new feasibility that has been concluded will lead the project to a new concept. We can’t reveal the name of our international partner but it is a leading aluminium company with the right technology and experience,” he added.
Industry sources said Canada’s Alcan was a possible candidate to join the venture as the third partner. “We know that Alcan had a few rounds of talks with OOC and Adwea in the past and the company is most likely to be the one to take the offer,” one aluminium expert said, according to the report.
German firm to build chemical plant
Private Saudi Arabian firm Alujain Corporation has said it awarded Germany’s Lurgi Oel Gas Chemie, a unit of mg technologies ag, a contract to build a chemical plant in Saudi Arabia.
An Alujain statement said Lurgi would build the 420,000-tonne-per-year propane dehydrogenation plant to produce polymer-grade propylene. The statement gave no cost of the project, which will come up in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, but an earlier estimate by Alujain had put it at around $276 million.
It said a new firm, The National Propylene Company (Alfasel), would be set up to run the plant, which would come on stream in the third quarter of 2006.
Alujain would hold a stake of 25 to 30 per cent and foreign partners would own around 20 per cent. The remainder of the shareholding would be offered to Saudi and other Gulf Arab investors.
State-run oil company Saudi Aramco would provide the feedstock for the plant, the statement said.
Altajir Glass opens new unit
Jebel Ali-based Altajir Glass recently inaugurated the Dh100 million ($27.3 million) phase of its third production line, part of a two-phase Dh550 million expansion plan, company officials said.
The first-phase expansion, completed in a record 85 days, has increased its capacity from 1.5 million bottles to 2.25 million bottles per day and overall glass melting capacity to 540 tonnes per day.
Group deputy chairman Khalil Altajir inaugurated the fully automated unit at a ceremony attended by officials, contractors and top executives.
The addition of the third production line also enhances the plant’s capability to produce bottles ranging in size from 150ml to 2.5 litres.
Altajir Glass is investing Dh550 million in the two-phase expansion. The second phase of the expansion, to be completed in two years at a cost of Dh450 million, will double the plant’s capacity to 4.5 million bottles per day.
With this, total investment in the Dh450 million plant will cross Dh1 billion.
Altajir Glass is the second largest containerised cargo shipper out of Dubai after Dubai Aluminium (Dubal).
The industry was set up in 1996 with an initial investment of Dh450 million. More than 95 per cent of its products are exported to 43 countries. Its bottles are produced under contract for a number of leading brands worldwide, including Coke and Pepsi. The company has 220 employees.
UK firm opening UAE office
UK-based IMG offshore is to open a regional office in the UAE this year to tap growing regional demand from the oil and gas industry for composite pipe-wrapping materials that combat the effects of corrosion.
“We are very interested in starting operations in the Middle East and as a first step are opening an office in the UAE along with warehousing facilities for stocking materials,” said IMG Offshore’s business manager Robert Gough. “We have chosen the UAE due to its strategic location. It is a regional hub for the transit of materials and personnel to the rest of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent,” he added.
IMG Offshore says its high technology composite wrapping materials can be used to seal leaks from 2mm up to 100mm and replace the strength and integrity of pipe wall thickness lost due to corrosion or erosion.
The company’s composite technology materials used in the North Sea can be applied offshore both topside, sub-sea and onshore above or below ground to provide a repair solution lasting some 20 years or more.
New recycling plant begins operations
Jeddah’s new recycling plant, described as the biggest in the Middle East, has started operations.
It was built in partnership between the Jeddah Municipality, the government and investment company Sadaca for Operations and Maintenance, with the government taking full ownership and control in 20 years.
The plant was designed with a view to eliminating the city’s mounting waste-disposal problems.
More plants on the scale of the Jeddah site are planned for the east coast, Riyadh and Makkah.
The plant, located to the east of Jeddah, currently handles about 1,000 tonnes of solid domestic and commercial waste per day.
