Cristal Global plans plant in Jazan

Saudi producer of titanium dioxide, Cristal Global is to set up the GCC’s first ilmenite processing plant to make high-grade slag used in the production of titanium dioxide, Arab News reported. The plant is to be set up at Jazan Economic City (JEC) at a cost of US$550M, Cristal said. The slag to be processed to between 85 and 92% purity in JEC will be used for producing titanium dioxide at Cristal’s titanium dioxide plant in Yanbu, which was established in 1991.

In its first stage, the ilmenite smelter will produce 500,000t/yr of high purity ilmenite slag and 250,000t of high purity pig iron (HPPI) as a by-product, which will go to the steel mills of the kingdom. "The Jazan smelter will go on stream next year and it will the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia,” said Chairman and CEO of Cristal, Talal Al-Shair. "The smelter’s production capacity can be doubled to one million tonnes and the supply will go to the local market for the first time.”