BATON ROUGE [AP] — Albemarle Corp. will produce chemical refining catalysts in a new Middle East joint venture.
On Tuesday, Albemarle’s chief executive, Mark Rohr, said his Baton Rouge company would contribute $80 million to build the catalyst facility with Ibn Hayyan Plastic Co. in the Arabian Gulf industrial city of Al-Jubail. That company is part of the Saudi Basic Industries Corp.
The project will begin this quarter and open in 2012. In conference calls with analysts, Rohr said the deal won’t boost Albemarle’s global production of tri-ethyl aluminum significantly. But it would place 6,000 metric tons a year directly into a region where the chemical infrastructure is expanding rapidly.
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