The Sadara Chemical Company (Sadara) in Saudi Arabia said that its chemical complex in Jubail Industrial City II is more than 97% complete, making the announcement shortly after launching its first product, the Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE), reported Trade Arabia. Sadara was the first company to launch a start-up Solution Polyethylene facility in the Middle East and is commissioning other start-ups to finish the remaining 25 units of the complex.

Sadara is also trying to attract investors to the adjacent PlasChem Park that will use products and raw materials in the Jubail area for downstream manufacturing and conversion industries, according to Zawya. Sadara is working with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu in this effort, and with companies like Energy Chemical Sources Company (ECSC), which is a joint venture between Halliburton and Taqa. ECSC had already been contracted to produce oilfield chemicals for the Saudi oil and gas industry.

The Sadara complex, when complete, will be the world’s largest industrial complex built in a single phase and the first in the Middle East to use refinery liquids like naphtha as feedstock.

Director of Value Park Department at Sadara, Mohammad Alazzaz, explained that only 0.3% of the chemicals produced in the region are considered specialty chemicals, an eventuality his company intends to change through downstream value-added. He said that this would further help the Saudi economy diversify away from its dependency on crude oil.

Sadara is a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and The Dow Chemical Company and enjoys a total investment of about $20b. The announcements were made during the GPCA PlastiCon 2016 conference, organized under the theme of ‘Evolving GCC Plastic Conversion: Technology meets Business.’