Saudi Arabia’s National Industrialisation Co (Tasnee) has begun talks with banks to secure financing for a $1.5 billion to $2 billion acrylic acid plant, reports Reuters.

HSBC, Tasnee’s financial advisor, is talking to local banks while discussions are also ongoing with export credit agencies in Korea and Germany, Middle East Economic Digest said on its website.   

The firm will seek financial commitments in the first half of 2011, the London-based magazine said. It is looking for a mix of US dollar and Saudi riyal loans.

The acrylic acid plant is expected to cost SR4 billion ($1.1 billion) and start production of about 230,000 tonnes a year by the first quarter of 2013.  

In October, a consortium of South Korea’s Samsung Engineering Co and Germany’s Linde won an early construction deal for the plant.

Saudi subsidiaries of Tasnee Sahara Olefins Co (TSOC) – a joint-venture of Tasnee and Sahara Petrochemicals Co – own 75 per cent of the complex and 25 per cent belongs to US-based Rohm and Haas, recently bought by Dow.