Beirut (APD) - The Sahara Petrochemical Company and the international firm Basell signed an early work agreement with Italian firm Technimont and Korea's Daelim Industrial Company to implement a polypropylene project in the Jubail industrial city in Saudi Arabia, Sahara Petrochemical announced on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) website on Monday.
The agreement forms an integral part of the engineering, procurement and construction contract signed between the two parties at an earlier time.
Sahara Petrochemical and Basell jointly own the SR 2.3 billion ($613.22 million) polypropylene project, the company statement said.
"The complex will include two plants. One plant will have an annual output of 460,000 tons of propylene using a process owned by [technology company] UOP. The other will produce 450,000 tons per year of polypropylene using the advanced Spherizone process developed by Basell," said Essam Hamdi, president of Sahara Petrochemical.
"The polypropylene complex will be the first in the region to employ the Basell technique," Hamdi stated.
The polypropylene plant will use propane supplied by Saudi Aramco and is expected to start operations in the second quarter of 2008.
Sahara Petrochemical was established in 2004; it has a paid-up capital of SR 1.5 billion.
The share of Sahara Petrochemical closed at SR 597.5 on Sunday down by 0.747% from SR 602, its close on Saturday. [TS]
By Shikrallah Nakhoul, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2005
