An ethylene and propylene project initiated by Tasnee Petrochemicals Company (Tasnee) and its partners moved a step forward with the announcement that they have awarded it to Linde AG of Germany and Samsung Engineering Company of South Korea.

Tasnee is in partnership with Sahara Petrochemicals Company (Sahara), the Saudi International Petrochemical Company (Sipchem) and Basell Polyolefins to build the $2.4 billion complex in Jubail Industrial City. 
The partners have already secured the allocation of hydrocarbon gases from Saudi Aramco to supply the project with feedstock and fuel. The annual production capacity is 1 million tonnes of ethylene and about 300,000 tonnes of propylene using Linde technology.
Ethylene is the main building block for petrochemicals and among its derivatives are polyethylene and vinyl acetate monomer. A number of petrochemical industries utilise propylene including polypropylene. As well as the ethylene plant, this large complex will include polymerisation plants to produce high- and low-density polyethylene and polypropylene in addition to supplying the ethylene requirements of vinyl acetate monomer (VAM)  and polypropylene production.
The complex spells rewarding job opportunities for the Saudi workforce. Expected manpower requirement is around 700. Construction work is expected to start by the first quarter of 2006 while operations are to start by the second half of 2008.
The project represents a national industry development. For having helped make this a reality, the partners thanked the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Sources, the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia), the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, Saudi Aramco and the Offset Committee.
The project award ceremony was held in the Riyadh headquarters of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia).  Present were Tasnee chairman Mubarak AlKhafrah, Basell Polyolefins president Volker Trautz and other senior officials of the companies involved. Also attending the ceremony were Prince Saud Bin Thunayyan, president of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY), and Amr Abdullah Al Dabbagh, Governor of Sagia.
Al Dabbagh said the project was in line with Sagia’s vision to promote investments in the strategic petrochemical sector.
“The signing represents a milestone in that direction,” he said. “Given Saudi Arabia’s competitive advantage in petrochemicals, Sagia aims to promote investments in this industry to double the country’s petrochemical share from the global output which currently stands at 7 per cent to 13 per cent by the decades’s end.”
Tasnee chairman Mubarak AlKhafrah described the project as “gargantuan.”
Tasnee is a Saudi joint stock company and already has an operational joint venture with Basell Polyolefins to produce propylene and polypropylene. Tasnee is also working on a number of fronts developing other petrochemical projects.
Sipchem is a joint stock company developing a number of petrochemical projects. It has a methanol project in operation.
Sahara Petrochemicals Company is a Saudi joint stock company working on the establishment of petrochemical projects, among which is a large project to produce propylene and polypropylene with the participation of Basell Polyolefins.
Basell Polyolefins is the largest polypropylene producer and supplier in the polyethylene field. Basell’s customers cover a 120-country footprint and the company has plants in 26 countries spread over five continents. Basell has a 25 per cent stake in the ethylene and utilities project.