Sabic EuroPetrochemicals plans to build a third, 550,000 tonnes per year (tpy) naphtha cracker at Geleen, the Netherlands.

Sabic has two naphtha crackers in Europe: NAK 3 with capacity to produce 674,000 tpy ethylene and 325,000 tpy propylene, and NAK 4 with capacity to produce 675,000 tpy ethylene and 350,000 tpy propylene.
While no formal announcement has been made on the date to go ahead with the expansion, a Sabic EPC source added that plans were "on schedule".
The third cracker would boost Sabic EPC's annual production, currently standing at around 1.2 million tonnes, by almost 50 per cent.
"The ongoing development process of our new investment will likely be concluded by giving the go-ahead of the construction of our third steam cracker at the Geleen site. This will boost our business and create a significant number of 450 new jobs at Sabic over the next few years," said Abdullah Bazid, member of Sabic EPC's managing board.
Sabic's naphtha crackers at Geleen would also be reaching their 25 million tonnes ethylene production milestone, the company added. The NAK 3 and NAK 4 crackers were built in early 1970s and in 1979, respectively.
Most of the ethylene is processed by Sabic into polyethylene, at either the Geleen or the Gelsenkirchen, Germany plants.
Ethylene is transported to Gelsenkirchen via the ARG ethylene pipeline network.
This pipeline also supplies Sabic with ethylene from other producers if, for example, one of its own crackers is undergoing a maintenance shutdown.
The crackers also make other products that are either processed by Sabic itself or sold by Sabic's chemicals and intermediates business unit.
"This is an important milestone," said Henny Egberink, director of Sabic Limburg.
"Especially when you consider that with just the capacity of our first naphtha cracker it would have taken another 50 years to produce 25 million tonnes. NAK 1, long since demolished, produced 25,000 tpy of ethylene," he added.