Saudi Aramco and the Dow Chemical Co recently signed a detailed MOU to conduct a feasibility study for the construction, ownership and operation of a world-scale chemicals and plastics production complex named the Ras Tanura Integrated Project.

The parties will now enter the final negotiation phase for the formation of a joint venture company to build, own and operate the facility.
The petrochemical company will be operationally integrated with Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura Refinery complex and its Ju’aymah Gas Processing Plant, among the largest facilities of their kind in the world. The Saudi Aramco facilities will supply feedstock to the joint venture.
The proposed joint venture will bring together the world’s largest oil company with one of the world’s leading chemicals and plastics producers and marketers. The Ras Tanura Integrated Complex will produce an extensive and diverse slate of plastics and chemicals. When fully operational, it will be one of the largest grassroots plastics and chemicals production facilities in the world and will be positioned to serve major world markets.
“This project will leverage our largest refining asset and enhance its profitability by capitalising on the value-addition opportunities and synergies existing between refining and petrochemicals,” said president and CEO Abdallah S Jum’ah.
“The wide range of chemical materials and plastics to be produced by the joint venture,” he said, “will help spawn other downstream chemical conversion industries, thus strengthening the role of the chemical sector as a key enabler of many other future investments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Those new industries, fed by the joint venture’s products, will help further expand Saudi Arabia’s economy through diversification and new jobs, Jum’ah said.
Dow chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris commented: “This joint venture will further strengthen Dow’s presence in the Middle East and add to our already vast capabilities worldwide. Furthermore, the complex will have a long-term, secure and reliable feedstock position with integration to the adjacent refinery and gas processing plant, while positioning the new enterprise to grow its product sales.”
The Ras Tanura petrochemical complex will produce a broad range of basic and performance products, including ethylene, propylene, and aromatic and chlorine derivatives. Initially, the project’s scope includes world-scale production units for polyethylene, ethylene oxide and glycol, propylene oxide and glycol, chlor-alkali, vinyl chloride monomer, polyurethane components, epoxy resins, polycarbonate, amines and glycol ethers.
A similar joint venture, in the kingdom’s Western Province, is the PetroRabigh integrated oil refining and petrochemical complex. Ground was broken to begin construction of that project on March 19, 2006. PetroRabigh expands on the Rabigh Refinery and is a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd of Japan.