Major challenges on costs, schedule, availability of qualified contractors and financing faced by Saudi International Petrochemical Co (Sipchem) has forced the company to abandoned plans for a 1.3 mln tpa cracker project at Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Besides the cracker, Sipchem has also dropped plans for low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high density PE (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) plants that were part of the original project configuration.
Instead the company will secure ethylene and propylene for the derivative projects through an arrangement with existing crackers at the same location. Jubail houses crackers operated by Sabic's Petrokemya, Kemya, Sadaf and Sharq. New cracker projects at Al-Jubail include those by Sharq, National Chevron Philips (NCP), Saudi Ethylene and Polyethylene Co (SEPC) and Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co.
Sipchem plans to utilise the surplus ethylene and propylene at Al-Jubail under tolling arrangements. As the crackers at Al-Jubail are not fully utilised; no additional investment will be incurred at any of the crackers to provide ethylene and propylene to Sipchem. Sipchem, which has received gas allocation for its cracker project, will focus on differentiated products which include ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), acrylonitrile (ACN), methyl methacrylate (MMA), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polyacetals and polyvinyl acetate (PVA), sodium cyanide and carbon fibre.
17-Jun-08 
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