SABIC, a global leader in diversified chemicals, set targets to reduce its GHG intensity by 25% and material loss intensity by 50% by 2025 from its 2010 baseline.

In its industrial plants, CO2 forms as an inevitable by-product of the ethylene glycol process. Rather than viewing carbon emissions as purely a challenge, the company identified an opportunity to create greater value by valorizing emissions into commercial products. The company built a mega carbon capture and utilization plant that opened in 2015 at United, a SABIC affiliate. The plant uses SABIC’S proprietary technology to capture up to 500,000 metric tonnes of CO2 per year from the production of ethylene glycol that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere. Taking advantage of the close proximity to its other Saudi Arabian manufacturing facilities, the plant purifies the collected CO2 and sends it to other SABIC manufacturing affiliates to convert it into feedstock for valuable industrial applications: urea, a key agrinutrient that enables more plentiful harvests; methanol, a building block use daily for many other materials; and liquefied CO2 , used widely in the food and beverage industry.

This project exemplifies the Saudi government’s drive to turn carbon emissions into sources of value by using the nation’s vast hydrocarbon resources wisely and developing a “circular carbon economy”.