Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Saudi Aramco) offered bids for the engineering works of the joint venture (JV) which will exceed $20 billion to convert crude oil to chemicals, industrial sources on Thursday told Reuters.
This project is expected to process Arabian light and extra light crude oil, Reuters reported, citing one of the sources as saying.
“Several plants are expected to be built, including a 400,000-barrels-per-day integrated crude distillation and vacuum unit, a distillate hydrotreater, a vacuum gas oil hydrocracker, a residual fluid catalytic cracking unit, a mixed feed cracker, as well as polyethylene, polypropylene, butadiene, and aromatics recovery units,” the agency added.
The two Saudi firms are still searching for a location for their JV at Yanbu, near the power plant, or in Jubail, close to Sadara, which is an Aramco JV with US company Dow Chemical.
The deadline for engineering works and designs offers will be on 25 September, one of the sources indicated, noting that the JV's plant will be opened by the end of 2024.
“It was a priority for the company to convert crude oil to chemicals as the state oil producer aims to diversify operations in the run-up to an initial public offering (IPO) of shares next year,” Aramco’s CEO Amin H.Nasser said.
