Saudi Polymers suspends operations at Al-Jubail for about four weeks

16-Nov-12

Saudi Polymers has suspended operations at its facilities in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia over the weekend, with the shutdown expected to last around four weeks, as per its parent firm The National Petrochemical Co (Petrochem) in ICIS. Some of the units of the project ran into technical issues, causing them not to operate as designed, Petrochem said in a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange or Tadawul. The project operators and technology providers deemed it best to shut down some of the project’s units to perform the necessary maintenance safely. “As of 10 November 2012 all production at the plant has been suspended. It is expected that it will take around four weeks for the plant to have all units back up and operating,” Petrochem said. Saudi Polymers’ petrochemical complex can produce 1.16 mln tpa of ethylene; 1.1 mln tpa of polyethylene; 430,000 tpa of propylene; 400,000 tons of polypropylene (PP); 200,000 tpa of polystyrene (PS); and 100,000 tpa of 1-hexene.