by ADAM BRUNS

I

f plastics are no better than the chemistry behind them, then the same may be said of the new plant activity that undergirds the sector's performance.
      In the plastics raw material category, they don't come much bigger than SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.), the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based polymer firm. Prospective project lists don't come much bigger either. In addition to building six more warehouses in Vietnam, China, Australia and New Zealand by 2006, the company is constructing two new plants in Saudi Arabia and Europe, part of a current and planned expansion investment budget of more than US$8 billion.
      SABIC plans to raise its annual polymer production from 28 million metric tons in 2000 to 64 million metric tons by 2008. And as SABIC Americas controller Abdullah I. Dabibi explained in Atlanta during the Saudi Trade Mission that rolled through five U.S. cities in May 2005, the company has some 150 downstream projects ready for partners, for whom the company would provide feedstock as well as research and technology support. And the company "is constantly exploring overseas opportunities for expansion."
     

The new Cyclics thermoplastics facility on BASF grounds in Schwarzheide, Germany, is just the beginning for the young Schenectady, N.Y.-based company, which is currently evaluating sites for an operation five to 10 times as big.