Saudi petrochemicals venture SaBuCo starts up new plant at Jubail

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia, March 27 (Reuters) -- Saudi Butanol Co. (SaBuCo), a joint venture of local petrochemicals firms, has started commercial operations at its plant in Jubail, one of the shareholders said on Sunday.

The plant will have a capacity of 330,000 tpy of n-butanol, a type of alcohol used to make other chemicals, and 11,000 tpy of iso-butanol.

The project is owned by Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co., Sadara Chemical Co., which is a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical, and Saudi Acrylic Acid Co. (SAAC).

SAAC is an affiliate of National Industrialization Co (Tasnee) and Sahara Petrochemical Co.

The start of "commercial operations follows the successful testing of the butanol plant equipment and production efficiency in accordance with the technology licenses and implementation contracts," Sadara Basic Services Co. said in a bourse statement.

Last year, Tasnee said the project was expected to start trial operations in the third quarter of 2015.

Estimated to cost around 2 billion riyals ($533 million) when announced in 2012, the project was expected to go on stream in the first quarter of 2015.