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Asia: Japan's Asahi Kasei, Saudi Arabia's Sabic in acrylonitrile JV

https://www.chemnet.com   Apr 28,2011 Platts
Japan's Asahi Kasei Corp, Mitsubishi Corp and Saudi Basic Industries Corp., or Sabic, will set up a joint venture for the production of acrylonitrile in Saudi Arabia, Asahi Kasei said in a press release Wednesday.

The plant will have a capacity of 200,000 mt/year of ACN and 40,000 mt/year of sodium cyanide. Sodium cyanide will be produced from the hydrogen cyanide that is produced as the byproduct from the ACN production.

The plant will be built in Al Jubail and would be operated by a joint venture tentatively called the Saudi Japanese Acrylonitrile Company, to be known as Shrouq in Arabic.

Shrouq would be owned 50% by Sabic, with the remainder held by the Japanese partners.

Asahi Kasei decided on expansion into the Saudi Arabian market on the back of its strategy to gain the No. 1 position globally in the ACN market, and to meet rising demand in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as from Asian markets.

The three companies will begin formulating the basic plant design and advance work on a detailed business plan. A final decision on capital expenditure will be made in 2012.

Once the decision is made it would take two to three years to complete the plant, according to a company spokesman at Asahi.

ACN is used in the production of acrylic fibers, used in the garments industry, and for carbon fiber, which is increasingly used for its lightweight and strong characteristics in the aviation, automobile and sports utilities industries.

Asahi Kasei currently has in Japan one ACN plant in Kawasaki with a capacity of 150,000 mt/year and two plants in Mizushima with a combined capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

It has a wholly owned subsidiary company in South Korea, Tongsuh Petrochemical, which has a combined 300,000 mt/year capacity at Ulsan. The ACN complex in Ulsan will be expanded by 250,000 mt/year by the end of 2012.

In Thailand, Asahi Kasei is building an ACN plant in a joint venture with PTT Public Company, called PTT Asahi Kasei, which is planning to start up a 200,000 mt/year plant over June-July 2011.

When the Saudi Arabian ACN plant comes on stream, Asahi Kasei's total capacity will reach 1.4 million mt/year, which would then be the largest in the world, according to industry sources.

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