British Petroleum plc is planning a major investment in Saudi Arabia

Innovene — the polyolefin and olefin arm of British Petroleum plc — is planning a major investment in Saudi Arabia through a partnership with regional oil developer Delta International.

The two firms have formed a 50-50 joint venture that hopes to build a $2 billion petrochemical plant that would open in late 2008. Sites near Jubail, Saudi Arabia, are being explored, officials with both companies said in a news release.

No details of the proposed plant were available. The project was announced even as London-based BP pursues plans to sell Innovene or spin it off in an initial public offering in the second half of 2005. BP announced its intent to sell the olefins and derivatives segment of its petrochemicals business — which became Innovene — in April 2004, citing the unit’s low growth rates and profitability.

In April, Innovene opened a world headquarters in Chicago. The business also operates executive offices in League City, Texas; Staines, England; and Shanghai, China.

Innovene has annual sales of about $15 billion and employs more than 8,500 at 26 sites worldwide. In North America, BP makes polypropylene at plants in Alvin and Deer Park, Texas; and Carson, Calif. BP’s North American high density polyethylene works are in Deer Park and Cedar Bayou, Texas. The unit also produces solid and expanded polystyrene, as well as plastics feedstocks propylene, ethylene, butadiene and benzene.

Delta — based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — has developed oil fields and other projects in the Caspian Sea region and other parts of central Asia and the Middle East. The firm, founded in 1978 by Badr Al-Aiban, is working on projects in northern and western Africa.

Innovene recently opened a major petrochemicals plant in Shanghai through a partnership with Chinese national oil firm Sinopec and Shanghai Petrochemical Corp. That plant, operating as Secco, is described by Innovene as “the largest petrochemical complex in China to date.”

The Shanghai plant has annual capacity of 1.3 billion pounds of PE, 550 million pounds of PP, 660 million pounds of PS and more than 5 billion pounds of related feedstocks. BP owns 50 percent of the plant, which cost $2.7 billion.