The local The National Industrialisation Company (Tasnee) has formed a joint venture partnership with the local National Titanium Dioxide Company (Cristal) and Japan’s Toho Titanium Company to build a new titanium sponge plant in Saudi Arabia.   

The plant will be constructed at Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea coast of the kingdom and will have a budget of $420m. The planned capacity of the new facility is 15,600 tonnes a year.

Tasnee said in a statement that Toho technology will be used and the Japanese company will retain a 35 per cent stake in the plant. Tasnee and Cristal will each retain a 32.5 per cent share.

The titanium sponge produced will be used in several applications across the GCC, including the desalination, power and chemical sectors.

No timeline was given regarding the construction phase, but the joint-venture partners expect the plant to be fully commissioned by the first quarter of 2018.

MEED reported in May 2013 that Cristal is expected to start operations at a titanium dioxide plant it is building at Jizan Economic City in the southwest of Saudi Arabia in 2014.

The plant will have a capacity of 500,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of titanium dioxide slag, as well as 235,000 t/y of high-purity pig iron.