SABIC soon to open world's largest carbon purification plant in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) highlighted the company’s CO2 purification plant at the recent Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) from Nov. 1 to Nov. 5 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The forum brought together major players, including the Saudi energy market Saudi Aramco and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, to discuss the latest methods to shave off carbon emissions from the Kingdom’s industries.

SABIC’s contribution to the forum was a presentation on its CO2 purification plant in Jubail, which will be the world’s largest facility to process captured carbon emissions when it opens at the end of 2015.

Mohammed Al-Benyan, SABIC’s acting Vice-Chairman and CEO, said the company has heard global concerns over climate change and the role carbon emissions play in ecological destruction. He said that’s why SABIC embarked on the purification venture.

"Taking action on GHG makes business sense because operational energy and resource efficiency lowers operating costs and low carbon sustainable solutions provide lower risk growth opportunities," Al-Benyan said.

The Jubail CO2 purification plant will compress about 1,500 tons of CO2 each day that is captured from ethylene-glycol plant emissions. SABIC will then purify the carbon before sending it via pipeline to customers that intend to use it for methanol and urea production. The plant is slated to save half a million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year.