A Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) project to build a plastics application development centre in Riyadh took a step forward with the signing of a construction contract.
The facility to be called the Sabic Plastics Application Development Centre (SPADC) will be built by El Seif Engineering Contracting Company at the Riyadh Techno Valley research complex inside the King Saud University (KSU) Complex. The SPADC will comprise an area of around 80,000 sq m including 43,000 sq m of building space.
The SPADC is part of Sabic’s 2020 strategy, which emphasises the importance of scientific research to serve industries, the process of innovation and the creation of new industries.
Mohamed Al-Mady, Sabic vice chairman and CEO, said the centre would support the continued expansion of Sabic’s new product portfolio, especially in the areas of packaging, automotive materials and compounding. He noted that the new research facility would support the growth of downstream industries.
The centre will collaborate with customers in developing new plastic applications and provide technical support to Sabic’s local and international customers.
Top research equipment
Al-Mady said the centre would be equipped with more than 300 state-of-the-art items of special research equipment to be operated by more than 150 expert researchers. It will serve as a pilot project to help build Saudi Arabia’s knowledge economy and play an active role in the transfer of technology to the kingdom by building relations between university scientists and end-manufacturers of the plastics industries.
Dr Abdulrahman Al Ubaid, executive vice president, technology and innovation, Sabic, said the centre would be part of Sabic’s Global Technology Centre network and work closely with other company-owned and operated centres in Pittsfield in the United States, Bergen op Zoom and Geleen in the Netherlands, Bangalore (India), Shanghai (China), Seoul (South Korea) and Moka (Japan).
The centre would also house the current Polymer Technical Support Centre now located in Riyadh II Industrial City and act as a technical support hub and training centre for Sabic’s customers worldwide.
This world-class centre is the largest of its kind in the Middle East. It will be a Leed-certified building that complies with accepted benchmarks for the design and operation of high-performance green buildings.
Its design would also become a local landmark, standing almost 60 m high to provide a graphic representation of Sabic as one of the world’s leading petrochemical companies and the largest in the Middle East.
The centre is expected to be operational by the beginning of the third quarter of 2012.
