Sabic chief executive Yousef al-Benyan says the company and partner Saudi Aramco expect to announce in the second quarter whether they will proceed with their joint crude oil to chemicals (COTC) project. “We are in the phase of looking at the final scope. As soon as we finalize it, and I think this will come in the second quarter, we will be able to make some announcement,” he told Bloomberg on 16 January.

For sure the scope will be massive, since the project involves commercializing game-changing proprietary technologies for converting crude oil directly into chemicals. The partners intend to utilize technologies being developed by Aramco to build a plant at Yanbu on the Saudi Red Sea coast to convert 400,000 b/d of Saudi crude into 9mn t/y of chemicals as well as base oils. (CONTINUED - 193 WORDS)