Germany's Uhde Inventa-Fischer Secures PET Resin Contract from SABIC

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SAU:2010) (SABIC) (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) has awarded a contract for basic engineering, design and technology license to Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Berlin, Germany) for the second-phase expansion of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin project at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast. The expansion project is being implemented by SABIC's manufacturing subsidiary, Arabian Industrial Fibers Company (AIFC) (Yanbu, Saudi Arabia), to augment production capacity to 420,000 tons per year. The facility will manufacture different grades of PET resin for various applications, including carbonated soft drinks and plastic bottles. Uhde Inventa-Fischer will provide customized and integrated technology and plant design to handle all product- and process-related requirements by using the state-of-the-art melt-phase PET technology.

The expansion is part of SABIC's larger technology and capacity enhancement strategy for AIFC, which also includes extension of the purified terephthalic acid (PTA) unit, to provide raw material for the PET plant. SABIC holds a stake of 47.26% in AIFC, while the remainder is held by a group of private investors from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. SABIC is among the top-five petrochemical manufacturing companies globally. The company is 70% state-controlled and consists of seven business segments, including performance chemicals, plastics, polymers and fertilizers. SABIC's manufacturing activities are spread across 11 facilities in Asia, 17 in the Americas, 24 in the Middle East and 12 in Europe.

The production capacity of the Yanbu PET facility, which was initially around 70,000 tons per year, was increased to 300,000 tons per year in an expansion project that was launched in April 2006. EPC Engineering Consulting GmbH (Rudolstadt, Germany) executed the design and engineering services contract for the expansion project. The scope of the project included installation of two solid-state polymerization units to assist in conversion of polymers into bottle-grade chips. The enhanced production facility was commissioned late last year and the official completion of the project was announced early this year. The second-phase expansion of the facility will increase production capacity from 300,000 tons per year to 420,000 tons per year.

In February last year, AIFC also announced plans to develop a new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant at the Yanbu petrochemical complex. The PDH facility will help in the utilization of propane to produce propylene, which will then be converted to polypropylene. Polypropylene is extensively used in the packing industry.

Established in 1993, AIFC manufactures a wide range of chemicals including aromatics such as benzene and xylene, butane, ethyl glycol, PTA, polyester textile chips and bottle grade chips.

Uhde Inventa-Fischer is a subsidiary of Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany), which is the process-technologies arm of ThyssenKrupp Group (ETR:TKA) (Dusseldorf, Germany). Uhde Inventa-Fischer is a leading global engineering company providing equipment and technology expertise for production of polyamide, polyester, bottle-grade PET and engineering plastics. The company employs approximately 180 people across offices in Switzerland, Shanghai and Berlin.

The company recently executed a contract for Octal Petrochemicals (Muscat, Oman), to build a 300,000-ton-per-year rigid PET resin and sheet plant in Salalah. This plant, considered to be the largest of its kind in the world, uses Uhde Inventa-Fischer's Melt-To-Resin technology. The second phase of expansion plans is slated for 2011.

In April of this year, Uhde Inventa-Fischer secured a contract from Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corporation (TPE:1326) (Taipei, Taiwan) to build a polyamide-6 plant in Ho Chi Min, Vietnam. The 47,000-ton-per-year facility is expected to commence operations in 2010.

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