Belgium's Solvay and Saudi Arabia's Sadara Chemical Company have established a joint venture to produce hydrogen peroxide in Saudi Arabia. A new 300,000 t/y facility planned to start up in 2015 at the Jubail Industrial City complex of the Saudi company — a joint venture of Dow Chemical and the Saudia Arabian Oil Company — will be the first of its kind in the desert kingdom and at the same time, Solvay said, will strengthen its leadership in the country.

The plant will provide a key raw material for Sadara's on-site HP-to-propylene oxide (HPPO) manufacturing plant and feed production of propylene oxide (PO) derivative units that produce polyols and propylene glycol and support the company's downstream polyurethanes customers.

This will be the Belgian chemical producer's third major collaboration on mega plants for the hydrogen peroxide. Solvay operates a 230,000 t/y plant at Antwerp in a three-way partnership with Dow Chemical and BASF, as well as a 330,000 t/y plant with Dow at Map Ta Phut, Thailand.

"Solvay's high-yield HP technology enables such unique, large scale plants to benefit from advantages in both specific investment and production costs," said Pascal Juery, president of the Essential Chemicals business unit.