Production at the Yanbu National Petrochemical Company (Yansab), which has a designed capacity of nearly 4 million tonnes, has begun at the Yanbu Industrial City, reports Sabic, the company’s majority owner.

In another development, Sabic announced it had received official approval from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to participate jointly with China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) in a petrochemical complex currently under construction in Tianjin, China, and due for completion soon.
The Yansab complex, comprising eight world-class plants, has capacity to produce 1.3 million tonnes of ethylene, 400,000 tonnes of propylene, 800,000 tonnes of polyethylene (both low and high density) and 400,000 tonnes of polypropylene.
Other chemicals it will produce are 770,000 tonnes of ethylene glycol in addition to 250,000 tonnes of benzene and a mix of xylene and toluene, a combination of 100,000 tonnes of butane-1 and butane-2 and 25,000 tonnes of MTBE.
The complex produces olefins, aromatics, oxygenates and various polymer products used in plastic industries around the world.
Mutlaq Al-Morished, Yansab chairman and Sabic vice president, corporate finance, said Yansab applied the latest stat-of-the-art global technologies, some of which will be introduced for the first time in Saudi Arabia.
Sabic owns 51 per cent of Yansab whose capital is SR5.6 billion ($1.4 billion). Sabic Industrial Investments, Sabic’s wholly owned firm, owns 4 per cent. Additionally, 17 Saudi and Gulf-based companies own 10 per cent of the capital, with the remaining 35 per cent having been offered in an IPO for subscription by Saudis. The IPO allocation was completed on January 5, 2006.

Chinese facility
The Chinese approval for the Tianjin plant follows a strategic cooperation agreement signed by both parties on June 21, 2008 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The agreement stated that both parties would enter into a 50/50 joint venture at Tianjin and study the feasibility of adding a new product (polycarbonates) that uses raw materials produced at the complex and which are based on Sabic technology. 
The complex is expected to be completed in September 2009 with investments of around $3 billion. Overall annual production capacity is rated at approximately 3.2 million tonnes of various petrochemical products, including 1 million tonnes of ethylene plus other downstream products such as polyethylene, ethylene glycol, polypropylene, butadiene, phenol, and butene-1.
Participation in the Tianjin complex will expand Sabic’s presence in Asia and ensure closeness to its customers through local availability of its products and services, Sabic said.