A consortium of South Korea's Samsung Engineering Company and Germany's Linde has won an early construction deal for a Saudi-based acrylic acid complex expected to cost SR4 billion ($1.1 billion).

Saudi subsidiaries of Tasnee Sahara Olefins Co (TSOC) - a joint-venture of Tasnee and Sahara Petrochemicals Company - own 75 per cent of the complex and 25 percent belongs to US-based Rohm and Haas, recently bought by Dow Chemical, the Saudi firms said on Saturday.

Tasnee and Sahara did not disclose the value of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract awarded to Samsung-Linde consortium.

Rohm and Haas will provide the technology for the complex and will market its annual production 230,000 tonnes of acrylic acid and derivatives, the Saudi firms had said.

Saudi Ethylene and Polyethylene Co, affiliated to Tasnee, will provide propylene as feedstock for the plant, Tasnee said.

The complex is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2013, Tasnee and Sahara said. When the project was first unveiled in 2008, the two Saudi firms said they expected it to start production in 2011.

Rohm and Haas wants to use the product as a feedstock for its water-based acrylic products used to manufacture detergent additives, paints, coatings and adhesives among other products.-Reuters