Alujain announces that its subsidiary NATPET Propylene & Polypropylene Complex in Yanbu Industrial City has, on the evening of Wednesday, 5 Muharram 1433H corresponding to 30 November 2011, completed the lenders 30 days reliability test running the NATPET complex at 99%, as well as the Design Test of 50 tons/hour representing the design capacity for the Propane Dehydrogentation Plant (PDH), and achieved the highest monthly record of production since the start up in year 2008, as reported by NATPETs Managing Director for Operation and Maintenance - Yanbu.
It is worth mentioning here that while in year 2010 the PDH plant achieved on-stream about 85.5% of capacity, in 2011 it could achieve only 60.3% due to a less than 2 months turnaround procedure (major plant maintenance) undertaken on the PDH plant due to the lapses of the construction contractor. NATPET has since fixed the problems and the plant is running smoothly since then.
It is expected that the Complex will run at its capacity in 2012 and beyond.
On the other hand, NATPET is currently working to establish three polypropylene downstream projects in Yanbu Industrial City. The first one is a Geotextiles plant for which NATPET has already signed the joint venture agreement with Low & Bonar and it is in the implementation phase. Geotextiles are permeable fabrics widely used in infrastructure and civil engineering applications, such as roads, building, etc. The geotextiles are in high demand regionally and worldwide. The second project is expected to be finalized and signed in early 2012. As for the third project, discussions are ongoing with the proposed partner and Alujain will announce the developments in due course. Mr. Helmi Kutbi, who has been involved in the plastics downstream industry for the past 15 years, has been appointed as the President of the Downstream Projects.
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