The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW - News) and Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil and petrochemicals company Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) have officially established their planned petrochemical joint venture Sadara Chemical Company and announced its senior officers.

The complex is being built in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, and is slated to be one of the world's largest integrated petrochemical facilities. The companies expect Sadara's first production plants to start up in the second half of 2015, with all units due up and running in 2016.

Sadara is poised to become a significant contributor for Saudi Aramco's transformational downstream growth strategy, said Saudi Aramco President and CEO Khalid Al-Falih in a joint press release Monday.

This unique partnership will help foster downstream industries and support industrial diversification that add significant value to the Kingdom's hydrocarbon resources, he added.

Dow Chemical and Saudi Aramco have appointed Ali A. Abuali, former president of Saudi Aramco's Houston-based subsidiary Aramco Services Company, to lead Sadara as its chief executive.

They have also named Luciano Poli, Dow Chemical's finance director for Europe, Middle East & Africa operations as Sadara's chief financial officer.

Sadara is expected to deliver revenues of about $10 billion annually in its first few years of operation. Manufacturing units within the complex will produce a range of performance products such as polyurethanes, propylene glycol, elastomers, linear low density polyethylene, low density PE, glycol ethers and amines.

Sadara will market products to markets in the Middle Eastern countries, while Dow will market and sell on behalf of Sadara to the rest of the world.

Dow Chemical's shares rose $1.17, or 4.8 percent, to $25.66 in afternoon trading Monday.

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