Sabic plans to boost output with new plants

Riyadh: Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) is considering building new plants to help boost its production to 130 million tonnes of petrochemicals by 2020, the company's chief executive said in remarks published on Sunday.

The state-controlled firm had a production of 56 million tonnes in 2008, a company official told Reuters separately.

"We are conducting an economic feasibility for new plants. Sabic has a plan to boost production to 130 million tonnes by 2020 and you cannot reach this volume without new plants or through projects' acquisitions," Mohammad Al Mady told Al Hayat newspaper.

Investment

Sabic plans to increase its investment in China after securing government approval for a $3 billion (Dh11.01 billion) joint venture plant with Sinopec in the region of Tianjin. Al Mady said one plant in the region was not sufficient and the company was also considering further investment in the country.

"Sabic's growth in China has no limits, especially that the Chinese market is currently the world's biggest for petrochemical products...

"There will be new investments in the future at reasonable time intervals to avoid market saturation," he said, without elaborating.

Annual production

The Sinopec JV plant will have an annual production capacity of 3.2 million tonnes, Sabic said in July. Construction will be completed in September, Sabic said at the time without giving a launch date.