Saudi Sabic and ExxonMobil in Texas Ethane JV

Saudi Arabia’s Sabic and US supermajor ExxonMobil announced May 1 a new joint venture to advance their proposed Gulf Coast Growth Ventures project, a 1.8mn metric tons/year ethane cracker in San Patricio County, Texas.

The full project, which awaits environmental permitting and a positive FID from the joint venture partners, also includes a monoethylene glycol unit and two polyethylene units. Ethane feedstock for the complex would be sourced from Texas natural gas production.

The new joint venture is the third between Sabic and ExxonMobil and the first outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The other two are Kemya in Jubail and Yanpet in Yanbu. Sabic is owned 70% by the Saudi Arabian government with the remaining 30% publicly traded on Saudi stock exchange.

The project, if it moves to construction, is expected to create 600 new permanent operating jobs, 3,500 indirect and induced jobs during operations and 6,000 construction jobs during peak construction. It is currently targeted for operations in the 2021-2022 timeframe.