Sadara Chemical Co., a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) and Aramco, Saudi Arabian Oil Co., and Chemie-Cluster Bayern GmbH (CCB) have signed an agreement to cooperate and jointly support the development of chemical-based value chains in PlasChem Park in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. This cooperation agreement will primarily focus on the identification and attraction of German and European Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) working in the chemicals industries to establish a presence in PlasChem Park, which is a collaborative effort by Sadara and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY). The signing was co-initiated by the German-Saudi Arabian Liaison Office for Economic Affairs.
Building on the knowledge that both Sadara and CCB have developed the Saudi chemical market, the agreement will also help the two parties identify hidden local market potential whereـjoint business development efforts can be more effective than those of individual SMEs. Member companies of the CCB network will benefit by being able to capitalize on downstream investment opportunities, thereby establishing or expanding their manufacturing presence into the Kingdom, leveraging the friendly business environment, the availability of differentiated raw materials, the robust infrastructure and the shared services to be made available at Sadara’s PlasChem Park complex.
CCB is a German public-private partnership organization initiated by the state government of Bavaria, chemical industry associations, several Bavarian universities and research organizations. It represents a network of about 270 companies and research institutes from Bavaria’s chemical industries. CCB’s member companies have an export rate of more than 65% of their total sales and represent leading solution providers for a broad portfolio of chemical products and value chains.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sadara and CCB will collaborate to identify promising market opportunities in Saudi Arabia for chemical companies, in particular SMEs with a specific interest in opening or expanding operations in the Kingdom and connect those companies with the right partners to drive their success.
A key factor of the agreement is the PlasChem Park project, a 12-square-kilometer site in Jubail Industrial City II, located next to Sadara’s new manufacturing complex and devoted exclusively to chemical and conversion industries. PlasChem Park offers tenants easy access to Sadara’s differentiated product slate, as well as inputs from other local petrochemical producers, enabling downstream industries based on polyurethane, amines, glycol ether, polyethylene, propylene glycol and other products.