SABIC, Albemarle Link For Catalyst

Albemarle and an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) have formed a joint venture, called Saudi Organometallic Chemicals, to build an $80 million organometallics plant in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The plant will have 6,000 metric tons of annual capacity for triethylaluminum, used as a Ziegler-Natta cocatalyst. It will be the first of its kind in the region, which has emerged as one of the world’s leading producers of polyethylene. “This facility will provide strategically needed security for the supply of triethylaluminum catalyst, which is critically required for our multi-billion-dollar polyolefins industry,” SABIC CEO Mohamed Al-Mady says.