Ibn Sina to move ahead in high performance chemicals
Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) and its partners in Ibn Sina joint venture, Celanese Corp (Celanese) and Duke Energy Corp., have decided to reactivated the Polyacetal (POM) project in Al Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.
Ibn Sina is the common name of the joint venture called National Methanol Corp created in 1981.
In 2010, Sabic and Celanese had signed an agreement to develop the Polyacetal project in Al Jubail.
As a result, the working interests in Ibn Sina are shared between:
- Sabic 50%
- Celanese 25% to be increased to 32.5% by transfer from Sabic at the start up of the Polyacetal plant
- Duke Energy 25%
Polyacetal is the commercial name of Polyoxymethylene or POM mostly used in high added value applications such as small home appliances, bearings and gears, wear parts and automotive fuel systems because of its good resistance to abrasion and fatigue especially when in contact with oil and greases.
For these reasons Polyacetal is also been widely used in surgery for hip and femoral junctions.
Produced out of methanol as feedstock, the Polyacetal matches perfectly with Saudi Arabia to develop its petrochemical industry into more high added value chemical products in order to reduce its reliance on the barrel price and take advantage of its available oil and gas resources to maximize the upstream- downstream value chain.
WorleyParsons completed FEED for Ibn Sina POM
Taking the methanol as feedstock from the actual Ibn Sina methanol plant in Al Jubail, the Polyacetal facility should have a capacity of 50,000 t/y.
In 2010, Sabic awarded the front end engineering and design (FEED) work to WorleyParsons Beijing, China.
WorleyParsons completed the FEED in August 2011.
Sabic and its partners Celanese and Duke Energy are planning a capital expenditure of $400 million and have sent the call for tender with a bid submission deadline on October 24th 2012.
Sabic has qualified the following engineering companies:
- China National Chemical Engineering from China
- CTCI from Taiwan
- Daelim Industries from South Korea
- Dragados from Spain
- Hanwha Engineering from China
- Hyundai Engineering from South Korea
- SK Engineering and Construction from South Korea
Sabic expects to award the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract at the year end.
Originally planned for completion in 2013, the delay of the Sabic Al Jubail Polyacetal project should run into commercial operations in 2015.
The Al Jubail Polyacetal project is part of the Sabic’s strategic plan 2020 to support Saudi Arabia in its downstream development activities for high performance chemical products.
