Saudi-Yanbu' Petrochemical Co. (Yanpet).

Set up in 1980 at Yanbu', on the Red Sea coast, as a 50-50 JV between SABIC and Mobil Oil Corp., Yanpet's first production began in 1984 with an ethylene complex. On Oct. 25, 1999, Saudi Crown Prince and acting ruler Abdullah Ibn Abdel Aziz inaugurated two units of Yanpet's second complex,

The second olefins complex, called Yanpet-2 and to cost $2.5 bn, will have an

800,000 t/y ethylene cracker in 2000 which can be fed with up to 1m t/y of propane. This will boost Yanpet's total ethylene production capacity to more than 1.6m t/y. The cracker is being built by US-based ABB Lummus Global. A new 410,000 t/y ethylene glycol plant at Yanpet-2 is being built by Toyo Corp. of Japan, raising Yanpet's output capacity for this product to 660,000 t/y. A 125,000 t/y pyrolysis gasoline unit is also being built. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan has built the new HDPE and polypropylene units, which will use Unipol technology licensed from Union Carbide of the US. Yanpet-1 can produce 800,000 t/y of ethylene, almost 400,000 t/y of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and 430,000 t/y of HDPE. Yanpet capacity in 2000 will reach 3.2m t/y of various products.