Petrokemya, a wholly-owned affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), has invited companies for the contract to engineer and build the plant, which will have a capacity of 200,000 tonnes a year (t/y).

The work covers the construction of a polybutediene plant, a latex unit, a higher rubber graft facility, a styrene acrylonitrile plant and an ABS compounding unit. Process technology for the scheme is being supplied by Sabic Innovative Plastics, formerly known as GE Plastics, which Sabic acquired last year.

Butadiene, acrylonitrile and propylene feedstock for the facility are likely to be sourced directly from Petrokemya.

The client says it expects to invite bids for the contract in April, with bids due by the end of June. An award is likely by the autumn.

Once built, the plant will be the first ABS production facility in the Gulf. The joint venture of Saudi Aramco and the US’ Dow Chemical Company is also planning an ABS plant at its massive Ras Tanura integrated refinery and petrochemical complex, although that is at a less advanced stage of development (MEED 10:11:06).

Middle East producers are increasingly going downstream and integrating their existing production with new products. A shortage of ethane feedstock in the region is also a factor, with producers unable to make high yielding ethylene-based derivatives due to a lack of further gas allocations.

ABS is a thermoplastic commonly used to manufacture rigid, light molded products such as car parts, musical instruments and pipes. Total global ABS capacity is more than 7 million t/y.