Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company (SAFCO), an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), signed a contract with the German engineering company, UHDE GmbH for the engineering, procurement and construction of one of the world’s largest Ammonia and Urea plant complexes, SAFCO 4.
The facility will be constructed at Al-Jubail Industrial City on the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia, and is scheduled for completion by late 2005. Plant capacity will be 1.1 million metric tons per year of ammonia, and 1.1 million mt per year of urea.
SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO Mohamed Al-Mady, who is also chairman and managing director of SAFCO, said: “This expansion will make SAFCO one of the largest ammonia and urea plants in the world, and will advance SABIC’s position in the global fertilizer market.”
Commercial production at SAFCO 4 is scheduled to start in first quarter 2006, which should tie in with an expected increase in demand for urea throughout international markets. Following the expansion project, SAFCO’s total annual capacity will increase to 2.6 million mt of urea, and 2.3 million mt of ammonia.
The Middle East’s largest petrochemicals company, SABIC, is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1976, when the Saudi Arabian Government decided to use hydrocarbon gases released in the production of oil as raw material for the production of chemicals, polymers and fertilizers.
The Saudi Arabian Government owns 70 percent of SABIC shares, with the remaining 30 percent held by private investors in Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
SABIC’s business activities have been restructured and a new management model became effective on September 1, 2002. There are now six Strategic Business Units (SBUs): Basic Chemicals; Intermediates; Polyolefins; PVC and Polyester; Fertilizers and Metals. Supporting all these functions is a corporate core consisting Human Resources; Corporate Finance; Corporate Control and Research & Technology. A Shared Services Organization will become operational in 2003.
SABIC has two large industrial sites in Saudi Arabia—Al-Jubail and Yanbu—with sixteen world-scale production complexes. Some of these production complexes are operated with multi-national partners such as Exxon Mobil, Shell, Fortum, Ecofuel/ENI and Mitsubishi Chemicals.
In addition, SABIC has interests in three production complexes in Bahrain. Over the last 16 years, SABIC’s overall production capacity has increased considerably. In 2002 it amounted to 40.6 million metric tons.
SABIC EuroPetrochemicals owns two petrochemical production sites in Geleen (Netherlands) and Gelsenkirchen (Germany) for the production, marketing and sales of polypropylenes, polyethylenes and hydrocarbons. They annually sell about 2.6 million tons of polymers, mainly in Europe. About 2,300 people are employed at SABIC EuroPetrochemicals.
SABIC employs over 16,000 people worldwide, most are based in Saudi Arabia. In 2002 SABIC posted sales of approximately 34 billion Saudi riyals ($9.06 billion) and a net profit of approximately SR2.84 billion ($758.4 million)
Uhde is a company in the Technologies segment of the ThyssenKrupp Group and has a workforce of 3,500 employees worldwide. The company's activities focus on the design and construction of chemical and other industrial plants in the following fields: fertilizers, organic chemicals and plastics, electrolysis, oil, gas and refining technology and pharmaceuticals.
With over 300 processes and more than 2,000 plants built, Uhde is one of the world's leading engineering companies in the field of chemical and industrial complexes. The range of products and services available from Krupp stretches from initial feasibility studies via financing to the commissioning of turnkey plants. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
