Aker Kvaerner wins world-scale polyolefins project in Saudi Arabia

On behalf of affiliate YANBU National Petrochemical Company (YANSAB), Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) has signed a letter of intent with Aker Kvaerner for the engineering, procurement and construction of its world-scale polyolefins complex, in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. The project is to be executed on a joint venture basis with China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC Group). Aker Kvaerner will be the joint venture leader, and expects its involvement to be in the region of USD400 million.

The Aker Kvaerner led joint venture will provide the engineering, procurement and construction for the project. The new facility will include a polyethylene plant and a polypropylene plant. The new plants, part of a major new ethylene complex, will each have a nameplate capacity of 400,000 tonnes per annum. The PP plant will use Dow's UNIPOL(TM) polypropylene technology, whilst the polyethylene plant will utilise SABIC's LLDPE technology.

The project is scheduled to commence at the end of this month, and forms a major step forward in the development of one of the world's largest petrochemical plants. The new production operations will apply the latest cutting-edge technologies and the complex is expected to come on stream in April 2008.

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