SABIC’s CO2 plant to come on line by end of 2015

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) is planning to launch operations at its carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization plant in Jubail by the end of 2015, Atieh Abu Raqabah, the company’s general manager for corporate sustainability department told chemical news provider ICIS.

Construction of the facility was said to be complete and commissioning work had begun.

The plant is designed to compress and purify about 1,500 tons per day of raw CO2 coming from glycol plants. The purified CO2 will be used to make urea and methanol.

The facility is expected to operate at full production capacity at the end of this year. The launch will also coincide with the company’s opening of a 500,000 ton per annum (tpa) ethylene glycol (EG) plant in Jubail.

The move falls in line with SABIC’s strategy to boost utilization of CO2 over the next two years to 4.2 million tpa from 2.7 million tpa in 2014, Abu Raqabah added.

Carbon Dioxide Utilization Project