Saudi Arabian Plastic Manufacturing Factory Case Study: Cooling Tower Retrofit Achieves 38% Energy Savings in 50-Degree Climate
Location: Jeddah Industrial City, Saudi Arabia | Industry: PET Bottle Recycling & Plastic Packaging Manufacturing | Equipment Retrofitted: Industrial Cooling Tower, Plastic Crusher
A mid-sized PET bottle recycling and plastic packaging manufacturing facility located in the Jeddah Industrial City — Saudi Arabia's principal manufacturing hub on the Red Sea coast — operates two-stage plastic processing lines producing recycled PET flakes and finished packaging film for the Saudi domestic market and export to neighboring Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. With approximately 340 employees and a monthly production capacity of 580 tons of finished recycled plastic material, the factory is one of a growing number of enterprises in Saudi Arabia's industrial sector, which has been expanding rapidly under the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative to diversify the economy away from hydrocarbon dependency.
The factory was established in 2019 and had doubled its production capacity by 2023. However, the expansion brought new operational challenges — most critically, the existing cooling infrastructure, originally sized for the facility's initial 280-ton-per-month capacity, was no longer adequate for the expanded production lines, and the management team faced escalating energy costs that were beginning to erode the competitive advantage of Saudi Arabia's relatively low industrial electricity tariffs compared to other regions.
An operational efficiency review conducted in August 2023 identified three interconnected problems that were constraining production and driving up costs:
Jeddah's summer climate creates extreme conditions for industrial cooling systems. Ambient temperatures regularly exceed 45°C from June through September, and direct solar radiation on equipment rooftops can push surface temperatures above 60°C. The factory's existing cooling system — a once-through open cooling circuit using raw municipal water — was unable to maintain adequate cooling water temperatures during peak summer months. Process water temperatures reaching 35-38°C caused frequent overheating shutdowns on the extrusion lines, resulting in an average of 6-8 hours of lost production per week during the July-August period.
Water consumption from the once-through cooling circuit also represented a significant and growing cost: the factory was consuming approximately 2,400 m³ of municipal water per month for cooling purposes alone, at a cost of SAR 18 per cubic meter — a monthly cooling water bill of approximately SAR 43,200 ($11,500 USD), subject to Saudi Arabia's tiered industrial water pricing that was projected to increase significantly in 2024.
The factory's PET bottle recycling process requires intensive hot washing at 85-90°C to remove labels, adhesives, and organic contamination from post-consumer bottles. The quality of this washing process is critically dependent on maintaining the correct wash temperature throughout the process — if the wash water temperature falls below 82°C due to inadequate cooling in the heat exchanger circuit, bacterial growth can occur and the resulting PET flakes develop off-coloration and reduced intrinsic viscosity, fetching lower prices from end-use customers in the textile and packaging sectors.
The inadequate cooling system was causing the wash water temperature to fluctuate by as much as ±12°C over each production shift, contributing to batch-to-batch variation in PET flake quality. In Q3 2023, the factory received quality complaints from two major customers — a Saudi Arabian food packaging company and an Emirati PET sheet manufacturer — relating to colour variation and viscosity inconsistency. These complaints resulted in price adjustments totaling SAR 127,000 ($33,900 USD) — approximately 4% of the factory's quarterly revenue.
For certain product lines requiring opaque or dark-colored packaging film, the factory blended recycled PET flakes with virgin PET resin to achieve the required color and mechanical properties. However, the quality inconsistency in the recycled flakes from the washing process variability meant that the proportion of virgin resin required to achieve consistent product quality was higher than expected — averaging 35% virgin PET across all opaque grades. With virgin PET prices at approximately $1,350 USD per metric ton in mid-2023, this represented a significant input cost premium that the factory was unable to fully pass on to customers in a competitive market.
Following a competitive evaluation involving three regional equipment suppliers in September 2023, the factory selected ZILLION to design and supply a comprehensive cooling infrastructure upgrade. The selection criteria prioritized three requirements: proven performance in high-ambient-temperature conditions above 45°C, SASO (Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization) certification for all equipment, and delivery within 8 weeks to allow installation before the peak of the 2024 summer season.
The ZILLION solution comprised:
Unlike the factory's previous once-through cooling system, the ZILLION design implemented a closed-loop condenser water circuit with the ZL-200T cooling tower as the primary heat rejection component. This approach addressed both the performance challenge (the tower maintains consistently cool water regardless of ambient conditions) and the water consumption challenge (evaporative loss from a modern induced-draft tower is typically 1-2% of circulation rate, compared to 100% throughput for once-through cooling).
The closed circuit also eliminated the risk of contamination from municipal water supply variations, providing more stable process cooling water temperature to the extrusion lines and washing heat exchangers.
The ZILLION equipment was delivered to Jeddah in the third week of October 2023 and installed during a planned maintenance shutdown in November. The ZILLION team, working through the local Saudi Arabian distributor in Jeddah, completed installation and commissioning of the cooling tower, crusher, and water treatment system over 19 working days. SASO certification documentation was provided with the equipment, and the factory's engineering team completed the integration with the existing process cooling circuits.
Full commissioning was completed in early December 2023, with the system operating in trial mode through January 2024 before being accepted for full commercial operation.
During the first full summer operational period (June-September 2024), the ZL-200T cooling tower maintained condenser water temperatures of 27-29°C — measured at the chiller condenser inlet — even as Jeddah ambient temperatures reached 48°C on multiple days. This compared to the previous system's performance of 35-38°C condenser water temperature during equivalent conditions.
Critically, the factory recorded zero overheating shutdowns during the entire June-September 2024 period, compared to an average of 26 hours of lost production per month during the same period in 2023. At the factory's average production rate of 19.3 tons per day and a production margin of SAR 850 per ton, this recovered production represented approximately SAR 419,000 ($111,700 USD) in recovered revenue compared to the previous summer.
The closed-loop cooling tower system reduced the factory's monthly municipal water consumption for cooling from 2,400 m³ to approximately 520 m³ — a reduction of 78%. At the current tiered industrial water rate of SAR 18 per m³, the monthly cooling water cost fell from SAR 43,200 to SAR 9,360 — a saving of SAR 33,840 per month ($9,020 USD), or approximately SAR 406,000 ($108,200 USD) annually.
With Saudi Arabia's industrial water tariff increases scheduled to take effect in 2025, the annualized savings are projected to increase further — the factory's management estimates annual cooling water savings will reach SAR 520,000 ($138,600 USD) by 2025.
With the closed-loop cooling tower providing stable, cool condenser water, the washing heat exchanger system was able to maintain wash water temperature within ±2°C of the 85-90°C setpoint across all production shifts — compared to ±12°C with the previous system. This dramatic improvement in process temperature stability translated directly to more consistent PET flake quality.
In the first full quarter of operation with the new cooling system (Q3 2024), the factory recorded zero customer quality complaints on PET flake shipments. Laboratory testing of flake samples showed intrinsic viscosity variance falling from 0.042 dL/g to 0.011 dL/g — a 74% reduction in batch-to-batch variability. The improved consistency also allowed the factory to reduce the virgin PET blend ratio in opaque product lines from 35% to 22%, reducing raw material costs by approximately SAR 180,000 ($48,000 USD) per quarter.
Against total project investment (cooling tower, crusher, water treatment system, installation, and commissioning) of approximately SAR 1,820,000 ($485,000 USD), the combined annualized savings from recovered production ($111,700), water cost reduction ($108,200), and raw material optimization ($192,000) totaled approximately SAR 411,900. The simple payback period was 7.5 months — well within the 12-month payback threshold that the factory's board had set for capital investments.
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer Overheating Shutdowns | 6-8 hrs/week | 0 hrs/week | 100% eliminated |
| Annualized Lost Production Value | SAR 503,000 | SAR 0 | SAR 503,000 recovered |
| Monthly Cooling Water Consumption | 2,400 m³ | 520 m³ | 78% reduction |
| Annual Cooling Water Cost | SAR 518,400 | SAR 112,320 | 78% reduction |
| Wash Water Temp Stability | ±12°C | ±2°C | 83% improvement |
| PET Flake Viscosity Variance | 0.042 dL/g | 0.011 dL/g | 74% reduction |
| Customer Quality Complaints (Q3) | 2 complaints | 0 complaints | 100% eliminated |
| Virgin PET Blend Ratio (opaque grades) | 35% | 22% | 37% reduction |
| Quarterly Raw Material Savings | — | SAR 180,000 | Material cost reduction |
| Total Investment | — | SAR 1,820,000 | 7.5-month payback |
The factory's engineering director cited four decisive factors:
Following the success of the Phase 1 cooling infrastructure upgrade, the factory has approved a Phase 2 expansion for 2025 that will add a second ZL-200T cooling tower to provide N+1 redundancy ahead of a further 30% production capacity expansion scheduled for Q3 2025. The factory is also evaluating the installation of ZILLION vacuum autoloaders and hopper dryers to complete the automation of its raw material handling system.
Operating a plastic manufacturing or recycling facility in the Middle East or North Africa? Contact the ZILLION engineering team for a free cooling system audit and a customized proposal designed for high-ambient-temperature operation with water conservation in mind.
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