South Korea's STX Heavy Industries said it has signed a $1.1 billion preliminary agreement to build a polysilicon plant and a benzene plant in Saudi Arabia.

A unit of Korean group STX Corporation, the firm said as per the agreement signed with Saudi-based Al-Rajhi Group, it will build these chemical plants at the Yanbu industrial complex by 2014.

One plant will produce an annual 6,000 tons of polysilicon, a major component of solar cells, while the other will make 100,000 tons of linear alkyl benzene used for producing detergent, the company said in a statement.-TradeArabia News Service