Ongoing partnership with ExxonMobil, thermoplastic solutions for electric vehicles, expanding into additive manufacturing and building what will be the world’s largest ethylene cracker are all key points for SABIC to home in on in its NPE2018 presentation to visitors.
Growth
However, while growth and new ventures are bubbling up all around the petrochemicals giant, the Saudi Arabian company punctuated its message with the importance of remaining true to its DNA.
Abdulrahman Al Fageeh, Executive Vice-President Petrochemicals, SABIC, said: “We want to make sure we are bringing different solutions to our customers. This year we are adding three new segments: caps and closures, personal hygiene and thin wall packaging.”
He noted that supporting the organic growth of the company was a major focus, while strong partnerships such as its joint ventures with ExxonMobil and investing in Clariant are galvanising growth and protecting stakeholders’ interests.
“Our focus on simultaneous growth is worldwide at this point in time,” Al Fageeh stated. “Our focus is to have organic growth globally and that’s what we are doing here by having the joint venture with ExxonMobil to enable utilising shale gas for chemical products, and in Saud Arabia we have a venture with ARAMCO to develop oil into chemicals. This is really helping us and making a strategy that is based in different parts of the world. With that in mind, we are looking in parallel for any opportunity to create value for our stakeholders and customers.”
Finally, Al Fageeh touched on the matter of sustainability insisting it is part of SABIC’s mission to protect the environment having been founded in the ‘60s and ‘70s where rampant oil production in Saudi Arabia sparked a need to prevent environmental damage by creating added value.
“Creating sustainable products is part of our DNA,” he stated. “We are proud we have so many products that bring sustainability.”
Official word from SABIC
SABIC seeking to grow position in key markets in the Americas with proven material solutions and expertise
SABIC, a global leader in the chemical industry, is showcasing at NPE 2018 its sharpened focus on growing with customers in key markets, drawing upon its market knowledge, deep expertise in application development, and steadily expanding portfolio of polyolefin, engineering thermoplastic, and specialty materials.
These markets include pipe and utilities, thin-wall packaging, caps and closures and personal hygiene. The company’s booth (S19001) features applications in each of these areas, which benefit from the use of SABIC’s materials and application design support.
“For each of these market spaces, we have formed business teams to focus on developing and driving tailored technology platforms and new products for customers in these segments,” said Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh, SABIC’s executive vice president for the Petrochemicals business unit.
“We have asked these teams to base all innovation, service and application development support on the existing and emerging needs of customers.”
SABIC already offers an array of material technologies to serve customers in these markets, including foam and polymer products, a wide range of polyethylene and polypropylene plastics, high-performance thermoplastics and more.
Now, the company is moving to broaden access to these technologies for customers based or operating in the Americas, to serve the above-noted segments, as well as traditional markets for the company in the region such as automotive, building and construction, healthcare and others.
“What visitors are seeing at our NPE booth is the product of our transformational work over the past few years,” said Al-Fageeh. “We restructured our businesses in ways that have sharpened our market focus and level of customer dedication. Our attention is set on identifying and satisfying the unmet needs of our customers, producing innovative and lasting solutions. We believe this market-focused approach best allows us to help drive performance for those who choose to place their business with us and serve as their dependable long-term supplier.”
Committed to growth in the Americas
Al-Fageeh added that SABIC has set ambitious goals for growth in the Americas, especially in the United States. In fact, he highlighted SABIC’s aim to double its manufacturing footprint in the country within the next five years, growing its sales here from almost three million tons annually now to about six million tons by 2022.
“SABIC has targeted the United States and the larger Americas region as a strategic geography for growth, which will be driven by our proven chemistries, world-class application development capabilities, and commitment to help our customers succeed,” said Greg Adams, vice president for SABIC in the Americas. “Ultimately, customers will benefit as we add a wider array of advanced material options for them to tap into and greater opportunities to collaborate with us on the next set of breakthroughs in their respective industries.”
One such breakthrough enables the creation of specialty polyethylene products to meet the increased demand for flexible packaging. The breakthrough is SABIC's own proprietary metallocene catalyst C6 LLDPE technology. Metallocene catalyst is an advanced technology for producing highly differentiated and value-added PE products for various applications that required exceptional properties.
Sustainability – scaling up high-quality recycling
As SABIC strives for further growth in the Americas and elsewhere globally, the company is also demonstrating its continued focus on sustainability. In fact, SABIC has emerged as one of the first in the chemical industry committed to the scale up of high-quality recycling to reprocess chemicals and mixed plastic waste back into usable materials.
The company recognises the opportunity to chemically recycle plastic waste that is today being incinerated or used for landfill. SABIC has made a strong commitment to scale up high-quality recycling processes for chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste to the original polymer, using its know-how, resources, and resolve to help reduce the waste stream.
Highlights of the SABIC NPE 2018 booth
In addition to showcasing solutions for new segments, SABIC is highlighting at NPE 2018 a broad range of innovative materials from both its petrochemicals and specialties plastics portfolios for use in traditional markets such as automotive, building and construction, consumer goods and electronics, healthcare, mass transportation, as well as new and emerging technologies in additive manufacturing and composites.
Segment-specific displays located within the SABIC booth feature an array of unique end-use applications using the company’s advanced material solutions.
Automotive
- Lightweight body in white reinforcement components. SABIC’s plastic-metal hybrid technology featuring NORYL GTX resin may reduce weight by up to 30 per cent vs. high-strength steel – without compromising structural crashworthiness of the vehicle.
- Steering wheel column. This application demonstrates SABIC’s new and growing portfolio of SABIC polypropylene (PP) compounds that deliver a soft feel and improved haptics for applications such as unpainted, low gloss automotive interior components.
- Aerodynamic roof fairing. Using Augmented Reality (AR) technology, SABIC is demonstrating how a thermoplastic-based roof fairing on heavy trucks can help overcome drag by up to five percent, potentially generating fuel savings of 2 to 4 percent for truck and fleet operators. The AR experience allows booth visitors to see how the part’s built-in air ducts reduce front end pressure and accelerate airflow both over the surface and through the part itself.
Building & Construction
- Pipe Skyline. SABIC’s extensive portfolio of pipe materials are featured by market segment – infrastructure, domestic, industrial, agriculture and aquaculture – in an impressive pipe display that showcases material details and target applications.
- Unique water filtration module. NORYL resin’s best-in-class hydrolytic and dimensional stability and chemical and high temperature resistance enabled Cerafiltec to avoid corrosion-prone steel framing with a fully injection-moulded module design.
Packaging
- Sustainable food/non-food containers. SABIC PP FLOWPACT impact copolymers feature high flow and high stiffness to enable thin-wall designs and fast injection that help reduce material and energy use.
- Caps and closures for packaging. Various caps, closures and product delivery mechanisms for beverages, food and non-food applications are on display, highlighting use of SABIC’s high performance PP, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE and ETP materials for these applications. Among the many potential benefits from use of these solutions are good environmental stress cracking resistance to enhance weight optimisation and lower temperature processing for significant reduction in cycle times and energy consumption.
- A range of tough packaging products made using SABIC’s recently introduced NEXLENE technology are on display at the booth. These include SABIC SUPEER stretch film grades, which are particularly well suited for stiff, thin stretch film applications; SABIC COHERE 8102 and SABIC SUPEER 8112 stretch hood pallet wrap; and PVC-free cling film made from SABIC’s metallocene PET; among others. These products feature an excellent balance of properties and illustrate SABIC’s commitment to the packaging space.
Healthcare
- eNeura migraine relief device. eNeura chose custom-coloured LEXAN PC copolymer, a healthcare grade, for the sleek housing of its new sTMS mini device. The material delivers biocompatibility, impact and chemical resistance and light weight.
- Sterilisation tray and arm cast. Additively manufactured parts using new SABIC healthcare filaments for fused deposition modelling benefit from biocompatibility, sterilisability and excellent mechanical performance.
Personal hygiene
Absorbent products. SABIC’s phthalate-free PP materials for non-woven applications offer excellent absorption, softness and light weight.
Consumer goods & electronics
- Thin-wall structural component. Demanding structural components in electronics can benefit from the new THERMOCOMP HMD-D family of high modulus ductile compounds. These reinforced polycarbonate grades can replace metal for lighter weight and thinner geometries.
- Moulded cell phone cases. Laser direct structuring using THERMOCOMP LDS compounds allows customers to make 3D parts and activate the 3D surface for proper metallisation.
Metal-plastic hybrid cell phone back cover. Nano-moulding technology (NMT) involves injecting plastic resin onto a metal surface. Using SABIC THERMOTUF compounds for NMT, electronics OEMs can replace insert molding/die casting to help achieve miniaturisation and expand design freedom.
Emerging technologies
UDMAX tapes. The newest UDMAX tape grade delivers exceptional tensile strength for reinforcing such industrial applications as pipes and pressure vessels. It offers a high loading of glass fibre, impregnated using SABIC’s proprietary HPFIT technology.
Livrea Yacht hull section. Produced using large format additive manufacturing, the two-layer hull features light weight and strength from carbon-reinforced materials, including ULTEM PEI compound.
