A CHEMICAL plant that closed due to the economic downturn will reopen this week.

Sabic, based in Saudi Arabia, said there had been an improvement in the commercial situation which meant its cracker plant at Wilton, Teesside, could restart.

The 300 employees continued to carry out maintenance work on Olefins 6 during the shutdown.

A spokesman for the company said flaring would take place from Monday onwards as the plant was brought back on-line.

A spokesman said: "We recognise flaring is noisy, particularly due to steam being injected into the flames at high pressure to make it burn clearly - and we have apologised in advance to local residents for this and have assured them that we will do our best to minimise any disturbance as much as possible."

The company said its Butadiene 3 plant would stay off-line until the beginning of May 2009 at the earliest, depending on market conditions.