Another 400,000 tpa each of HDPE and LLDPE will be added

Eastern Petrochemical Co (a Saudi joint venture also known as SHARQ) has secured a $2.43bn (E1.89bn) loan for the construction of its third expansion project in Al Jubail Industrial City. SHARQ was established in 1981 as a joint venture between Sabic and SPDC, a consortium of Japanese companies led by Mitsubishi Group and supported by the Japanese Government.

The loan has been agreed with Japan Banks for International Cooperation (JBIC), Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Local International Banks. Production at the new plants is expected to go on stream during the second half of 2008 with an annual capacity of 1.3 million tpa of ethylene and 700,000 tpa of ethylene glycol.

Annual capacity of polyolefins will be 400,000 tpa of HDPE and 400,000 tpa of LLDPE. This is expected to push SHARQ’s overall annual capacity over the 4.9 million tpa mark, which is more than ten times its initial annual capacity.