Cristal Global (Jeddah / Saudi Arabia; www.cristalglobal.com) is planning to build a TiO₂ slag plant in Yanbu / Saudi Arabia. The company has selected Outotec (Espoo / Finland; www.outotec.com) to build the plant, which will process 800,000 t/y of ilmenite ore to produce 500,000 t/y of 85% TiO₂, with 235,000 t/y of high purity pig iron as a valuable co-product. The plant will be constructed on a turnkey basis, and is expected to become operational in Q4 2013. It will be scalable to a maximum production of 1m t/y of TiO₂ slag, Cristal said. The company signed a letter of intent for the project with Outotec on 31 October 2011.

Locating the project in Saudi Arabia will enable it to take advantage of the country’s abundant power capacity, Cristal noted. Thomas VanValkenburgh, vice president of supply chain at Cristal, said the project will “benefit the whole vertical industry value chain through additional TiO₂ feedstock production capacity”.