MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi petrochemicals major SABIC is to restart its Wilton, UK steam cracker after an GDP850m investment, said the company.
With nameplate capacity to produce 865,000 /t of ethylene, alongside 415,000 t/y of propylene, the cracker first commissioned by erstwhile chemical conglomerate ICI in 1979 is Europe’s second largest. Originally run on liquid naphtha, it was later modified to handle both liquid and gas feedstock, including ethane, naphtha, propane and butane.
After being shut down for maintenance a year ago and not restarted, the facility’s future looked in doubt, and several other plants at the Teesside complex, where production activity has been subdued in recent years, had been expected to close.
Local officials, who reportedly negotiated with SABIC and Aramco to help secure the site’s future, said the new investment in the cracker will create hundreds of jobs and support “thousands more.” No update on the fate of the other plants has yet been forthcoming. SABIC also operates an LDPE plant at Wilton.
As MRC informed before, the British government said that Saudi petrochemical firm Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), the world's fourth-biggest petrochemicals firm, would invest nearly 1 billion pounds (USD1.37 billion) at its Teesside facility in northeast England with the aim of decarbonisation.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,638,370 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 989,570 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas shipments of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC