SABIC to be world's largest producer of ethylene glycol by 2006

24-May-2005

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), the world's 11th largest petrochemical company, is expanding its operations in the Middle East to meet the fast growing demand for the petrochemical segment, especially in intermediates and polyolefins.

Said SABIC's Vice President for Intermediates, Khaled Al-Mana, at SABIC's media conference held in conjunction with the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) 2005: "We are currently the second largest producer of ethylene glycol in the world and SABIC will become the number one producer in 2006. By 2006, SABIC will have a total ethylene glycol production capacity of 3.9 million metric tons per year and meet over 22 percent of global demand."

SABIC now supplies over 16 percent of the world's mono ethylene glycol (MEG) needs and exports some 75 percent of its production to Asia. Mr Al-Mana added: "When 630,000 metric tons come on stream at Jubail United Petrochemical Company (UNITED) by the end of this year, UNITED will be the world's biggest ethylene glycol plant."

SABIC's current and planned investment for overall production expansions exceeds US$8 billion and aims to increase overall annual production from 43 million metric tons in 2004 to more than 60 million metric tons by 2008. In addition to UNITED, SABIC is currently constructing two new plants which will increase the total production capacity of ethylene glycol (EG) by more than 1.8 million metric tons a year.

Other news from the department research and development

More news from our other portals

All FT-IR spectrometer manufacturers at a glance