Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province is witnessing one of the world’s greatest industrial build-ups.

Home to well-known petrochemical companies, the region has announced expansions that will raise production of some chemicals to levels that will consolidate Saudi Arabia’s position among the world’s top players in the industry.
Already Jubail Industrial City, amongst the world’s biggest manufacturing enclaves, is bursting at the seams, forcing the authorities to plan a second adjacent city to accommodate the many industries expected to set up their manufacturing base there.
The city will in fact double in size within 20 years with expectations that some $20 billion in investments will be ploughed into it.
“We reached a stage in Jubail where all the developed industrial areas started to run out, which necessitated us to look for areas to expand,” said Mohammed S Al Jurais, deputy director general of the Royal Commission in Jubail.
By the time it is completed, the city, which produces seven per cent of the world’s petrochemicals, will boast a petrochemicals capacity of 60 million tonnes per year (tpy).
The first stage of the new development will be completed by 2007and the next stage will be open for foreign investment by the third quarter of this year. The investments in Jubail will be completed by 2025.
The Eastern Province is also setting up a technology zone, which will be Saudi Arabia’s first. The park will be spread across a 3.5 million sq m site in Dammam’s Second Industrial City. Interestingly, it will be developed and operated by the private sector under a build-operate and transfer contract to ensure high standards. The park will be built near a highway, assuring it of good connections to all important landmarks in the province such as Saudi Aramco and King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals, King Fahd International Airport, Dammam seaport and the King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain.
An expansion at Sabic affiliate Eastern Petrochemicals Company (Sharq) will add 2.9 million tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene, polyethylene and ethylene glycol by 2008.  Several other Sabic companies are also in the process of implementing major expansions. One of them, Saudi Petrochemicals Company  (Sadaf), announced plans to build a third world-scale styrene plant to increase capacity by 60 per cent and make it the largest single-complex producer of the product.  Saudi Methanol Company (Ar-Razi) is also expanding its production capacity. Ar-Razi-5 will have a production capacity of 1.7 million tpy against the existing capacity of 3 million tpy.
Saudi Fertiliser Company’s (Safco) fourth-phase expansion project is expected to begin commercial production in the second quarter of 2006. The combined fertiliser production will reach 8 million tpy when the new unit comes on stream in 2006.  In 2005 Sabic’s three fertiliser complexes in the province produced 5.4 million tonnes of products against 5.2 million tonnes in 2004.
Outside the Sabic chemical fold, Dhahran-based Saudi Aramco is developing petrochemical complexes integrated to refineries. The first of these, Petro-Rabigh had its groundbreaking ceremony recently in the Western Region. Another petrochemical complex is coming up at Ras Tanura in the Eastern Region, while a Masterplan has been laid out to have a third integrated petrochemical complex in Yanbu in the West. 
Sipchem is building a 460,000 tpy acetic acid plant and a 300,000 vinyl acetate monomer facility in Jubail.  Sipchem operates plants for manufacturing methanol and butanediol.
Al Kayan Petrochemical Company is developing a world-scale petrochemical complex in Al Jubail, which will produce 1.35 million tpy of ethylene and 2.6 million tpy of finished products (including polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene glycol, polycarbonates and amines), from feedstock of ethane and mixed butanes allocated by Saudi Aramco for the project in late 2003.
It will be the largest single private sector petrochemical project in the kingdom and the first plant in the Middle East producing polycarbonates, a fast-growing market.
A Chinese partner is expected to participate in a project with a consortium of three Saudi companies to set up a $6 billion petrochemical complex in Jubail Industrial City.
The three Saudi companies are Midroc, Sara Development Company and House of Invention (HOI) Company. The plant capacity will be two million tonnes of basic and secondary petrochemical products annually.
Sabic’s Hadeed affiliate in Jubail has implemented a project to increase production to 5.5 million tonnes of long and flat steel products against 3.9 million tonnes at the beginning of 2004.
Dammam-based Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC) has made a strategic capital investment in the Arabian Fibreglass Insulation Company (Afico) of Saudi Arabia. 
The outright purchase of all 51 per cent of shares for SR65 million ($17.3 million), from previous owner Saudi Arabian Amiantit Company gives ZIIC majority control in Afico with Owens Corning Cayman (a wholly owned subsidiary of Owens Corning US), the world leader in the technology of manufacturing fibreglass products, holding the remaining 49 per cent stake.
ZIIC posted net profits, after Zakat contributions of $28.4 million for the year ended December 2005, representing a net increase of 51.6 per cent in net profits over 2004. Its turnover grew to $631.7 million, a 20.5 per cent increase.
ZIIC turnover for 2005 grew to $631.7 million, a 20.5 per cent increase over the previous year.