Underlining its commitment to its production site in Geleen / The Netherlands, Sabic (Riyadh / Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) in late April announced that it will invest EUR 135m in the site over the next 18 months. The money is to go towards raising safety and energy-efficiency at the site’s No.4 cracker as well as the launch of more than 20 additional improvement projects. The optimisation officially began on 11 April and is scheduled to be completed by September 2013 following what the group called a “substantial maintenance shutdown” in the wake of which the cracker will be considered one of Europe’s most prominent, Sabic said.

As part of the upgrade, the Geleen cracker will not only see its energy consumption reduced by 8%, its output also is to rise by 2%. According to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe capacity database (www.polyglobe.net), Sabic’s cracker No. 4 currently produces 660,000 t/y of ethylene as well as 350,000 t/y of propylene. Jacques Slabbers, director of Area Manufacturing Services Europe, said the upgrade would not affect deliveries to Sabic customers.