The Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company (KEMYA) rubber plant,a joint venture between Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) and ExxonMobil subsidiary Exxon Chemical Arabia, has recently started commercial operations at its polybutadiene industrial rubber part.
SABIC, one of the world’s largest petrochemicals groups, added in a stock market filing that it had also begun trial operations at the ethylene propylene diene monomer unit of the KEMYA complex.
Costing US$3.4 billion, the KEMYA joint venture rubber plant will supply over 400,000 metric tonnesper year of rubber, thermoplastic polymers and carbon black for domestic markets and for export to Asia, according to the statement.
The financial impact of the start of commercial operations at the polybutadiene unit would be reflected in its fourth-quarter earnings, while the ethylene propylene diene monomer business would likely reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2017.