Nogotations to Sign with Dow Chemical
- Pipeline
- Saudi Aramco News
- Industry News
Author: Aramco ExPats
Released 29 November 2006
Saudi Aramco is looking forward to signing an agreement with US company Dow Chemical Co for a $15 billion petrochemical plant in Ras Tanura for early 2007, announced an Aramco official last Tuesday.
"We are in the middle of negotiations for the memorandum of understanding with Dow Chemical," Sharef said. "Early next year we will finalize that and then the joint venture agreement will follow."
Aramco also expects to raise debt of upwards of $10 billion for the project, in which it plans to float 30 per cent to the public. This will only take place after the completion of front end engineering design for the project as well as the financing.
Front end engineering design will be awarded early next year and construction will start sometime after 2009.
Sharef said the project, slated for startup in the second quarter of 2012, was expected to cost in excess of $15bn. The core units of the project are an ethane/naphtha-based cracker, a high olefin fluid catalytic cracking complex, an aromatics complex and a chlor-alkali complex.