Jointly refined

Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical are to become joint venture partners in the development of a large, integrated refining and petrochemical complex in the Red Sea town of Rabigh on the Saudi Arabian west coast.

The new company will be called the Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company, or Petro-Rabigh for short.

When completed in late 2008, it will be one of the largest integrated refining and petrochemical projects ever built.

The initial plans for the Project include a high olefins yield fluid catalytic cracker complex integrated with an ethane based cracker, producing approximately 1.3 million tons per year of ethylene, 900,000 tons per year of propylene, and 60,000 barrels per day of gasoline as well as other refined products. Downstream petrochemical units are to be included to convert all of the olefin production to downstream products.

Saudi Aramco currently owns and operates a topping refinery at Rabigh with a nominal crude distillation capacity of 400,000 barrels per day. The existing site and infrastructure will serve as the base platform for the development of the Rabigh Project.

Although Sumitomo Chemical has been operating a large-scale complex in a petroleum-refining centre in Singapore, since 1984, the Rabigh project is the company’s first step to establish a foothold in an oil and gas-producing country, thereby assuring stable feedstock supply for its operations.