SABIC And Partners Slate Acrylonitrile

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC), Asahi Kasei, and Mitsubishi Corp. are forming a joint venture that intends to build an acrylonitrile plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The plant will have capacity for 200,000 metric tons per year of acrylonitrile and 40,000 metric tons of coproduct sodium cyanide. Asahi says the new plant will add to its existing and planned facilities to make it the world’s largest acrylonitrile producer, with 1.4 million metric tons of capacity. In 2009, SABIC and Sipchem signed a memorandum of understanding for a $3.2 billion project in Jubail that was to include new plants for acrylonitrile and sodium cyanide.