China’s Pan-Asia plans to Break Ground for PET,PTA plant in Saudi Arabia in 2018

China’s PET bottle supplier - Pan-Asia PET Resin (Guangzhou) Co. plans to build a petrochemical project in Saudi Arabia at a cost of $3.8 billion.

To be located in Jazan Economic City in southwestern Saudi Arabia, the facility will have an annual production of 2.5 million metric tons of PTA, 1 million tons of PET, 200,000 tons of engineering plastic, 200,000 tons of thin film, 200,000 tons of polyester fiber and 5,000 tons of heavy equipment.

The ground breaking is scheduled for March 2018, while the first phase of the complex will be operational in August 2020.

The project is expected to benefit from the proximity to raw materials – especially the large paraxylene facility operating in Jazan Economic City.

The plant will also have good markets in the Middle Eastern market – that alone imports 3 million tons of PTA annually, mainly from East Asia. Saudi Arabia currently has no PTA production and the new facility in line with Saudi Vision 2030, a blueprint announced by the government of Saudi Arabia earlier this year, which aims to reduce Saudi economy's dependence on oil and turn the kingdom into a global investment powerhouse. The new plant will also be able to target markets in North Africa.