MOSCOW (MRC) -- Colonial Chemical, Inc. announced the start of construction of a new specialty chemicals manufacturing plant in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, said the company.
The new facility is named Colonial Chemical M.E. Arabia. This facility is a joint venture with Sadeem Investments and Earth’s Reservoir for Oil and Gas, EROG. Colonial Chemical, Inc. is providing the technology and operations knowledge for the plant while Sadeem Investments and EROG are responsible for local operational oversight and construction support.
The Board of Directors overseeing the joint venture is headed by David Anderson, Colonial Chemical, Inc. President, as the Chairman. Mohammed Abduldaim, EROG President, is the Vice-Chairman, and other members include Dr. Peter Chetcuti, David Anderson Jr and Douglas Wynn.
This operation will primarily provide a source of locally manufactured specialty surfactants and other chemicals for oilfield, industrial lubricants, water treatment, paper, paints, coatings, personal care, household, and industrial cleaning applications. The new plant will offer manufacturing technology capabilities for a variety of chemicals as well as toll blending capability for finished formulations and custom chemical manufacture.
The plant will allow customers in Saudi Arabia and the region to achieve high local content levels required by localization initiatives such as IKTVA, NUSANED and NIDLP.
Construction is underway on a nine-acre plant that will include reaction vessels, distillation columns, toll blending and mixing vessels, pilot scale equipment for development, warehousing and tank farms. Additionally, construction will include state-of-the-art laboratories for R&D and formulation development and administrative offices for supply chain and customer service personnel. The plant will also house packaging and labeling operations.
Manufacturing operations are expected to commence in Q4 2021. Raw materials will be sourced locally to produce amine oxides, quaternary ammonium compounds, hydroxypropyl sultaines, betaines, propionates, ether carboxylates, imidazolines, phosphate esters, EPI-sulfonates, and phosphates.
We remind that in February 2020, PPG said it had completed its acquisition of Industria Chimica Reggiana (ICR, Reggio Emilia, Italy), a maker of automotive refinish products. Financial terms of the deal, including purchase price, were not disclosed. The deal was announced on 8 January. ICR was founded in 1961 and employs about 180 people. ICR manufactures automotive refinish products, including putties, primers, basecoats and clear coats. It also makes a range of coatings, enamels and primers for light commercial vehicles and other light industrial coatings applications. ICR employs about 180 people and sells its products in more than 70 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the US and Latin America.
We also remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 17.1% year on year.
MRC