Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) is planning to join hands with Saudi Aramco for a key project, press reports said.

The deal is aimed at upgrading a Red Sea Coast refinery and building a petrochemicals complex there.
The estimated $500 million plant, which will also have butanediol and maleic production units, may be another good fit for the company as it looks to increase its presence in the speciality chemicals market.
A deal would give Sabic, the world’s largest chemical maker by market value, access to Aramco feedstock and allow the state oil firm to press on with plans to develop its Yanbu project without a foreign partner.
The Yanbu venture is one of three refinery and petrochemical plants belonging to Aramco, the world’s largest oil company by production. The other two, Rabigh and Ras Tanura, are joint ventures with Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd and the Dow Chemical Co of the United States.
Aramco announced plans for Yanbu in 2005, including upgrading the 235,000 barrels per day refinery and adding a steam cracker and aromatics complex
Industry sources say a deal with the state company would be a good commercial fit, linking Aramco’s plentiful production of feedstock with Sabic’s market and technological expertise.
The deal is also thought to have the support of the government, which is keen that the kingdom’s two leading companies join forces to develop a project without an international partner.
In another development, Sabic is considering taking a 35 per cent stake in a $1 billion petrochemical project on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.
The petchem giant agreed with Yanbu-based Osos Petrochemicals to consider a partnership, Sabic said in a statement on the Saudi bourse website.
Sabic will make a decision about the partnership within two months at most, it added.
Osos aims to produce engineering plastics and specialty products and plans to start production in 2010. It also plans to sell shares in an initial public offering. Sabic said Osos would have an annual production capacity of some 200,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Al-Mady, vice chairman and CEO of Sabic and chairman of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA), has been named the world’s most influential person in the chemicals industry.
Al-Mady is one of two key GPCA figures who have made it to the list of the Top 40 power players in the field of chemicals worldwide that is published annually by the London-based international industry magazine, ICIS Chemical Business.
The other GPCA figure in the Top 40 Power Players list for 2007 is Hamad Al-Terkait, vice chairman of the GPCA and president and CEO of Equate. He has been ranked No 11.