JEDDAH: Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) said Tuesday it would build only one rubber plant project, in Jubail , instead of two as originally planned. When SABIC and Exxon Mobil Chemical first announced the rubber project, they said the expansion would include the Kemya joint venture between the two companies and their other venture, Yanpet, which is based in Yanbu. But SABIC said in a bourse statement it would go ahead with only one of those ventures, since the Jubail location provides better synergies with the Kemya petrochemical facility. The capacity of the project is more than 400,000 tons per year of carbon black, rubber and synthetic polymers for domestic and international sales. SABIC and affiliates of ExxonMobil Chemical announced that work on their proposed elastomers project joint venture has moved fully into Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED). SABIC and ExxonMobil have selected Jubail Industrial City as the site for the new manufacturing units following a comprehensive evaluation of a number of variables, including integration opportunities with their existing petrochemical joint venture at KEMYA, to determine the best location for producing these specialty products.
