MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Co. (PetroRabigh), a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has restarted its linear density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant, reported Apic-online.
A Polymerupdate source in Saudi Arabia informed that the plant was expected to be restarted last week. The plant was shut for a maintenance turnaround on March 16, 2016.
Located in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, the LLDPE plant has a production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.
As MRC wrote previously, in April 2015, Petro Rabigh received ownership of the Rabigh Phase II project from Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical, major shareholders in Petro Rabigh, and will now integrate the project into Petro Rabigh's existing refining and petrochemical complex in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia.
The Rabigh II project, expected to cost about USD 8.1-billion, involves expanding an existing ethane cracker and adding production of ethylene propylene rubber, thermoplastic polyolefins, methyl methacrylate monomer, polymethyl methacrylate, low-density polyethylene/ethylene vinyl acetate, paraxylene/benzene, cumene and phenol/acetone. Production facilities are expected to begin operations "one after another, beginning in the first half of 2016," Sumitomo said.
PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has an annual output capacity of 18 million tonnes of refined products and 2.4 million tonnes of petrochemicals. Thus, the complex currently has a cracker to produce 1.3-million t/y of ethylene and 900,000 t/y of propylene, as well as downstream production of polyethylene, polypropylene, propylene oxide, ethylene glycol and butene-1.
MRC