Oil and Gas Market Update for covering entire month of September 2013
- Sabic and Mitsubishi issue tender for $500m petrochemicals plants ‐ Two plants will be built at
Jubail in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
- Saudi Aramco awards Foster Wheeler Fadhili gas plant design ‐ US engineering consultancy to
carry out front end engineering for plant in Eastern Province.
- Saudi Railway Company invites companies to prequalify for new projects ‐ Contracts cover civil,
track, signalling and telecoms works.
- Farabi expected to make decision on Jizan plant in March 2014 ‐ New petrochemicals plant at
Jizan could have a value as high as almost $1bn.
- Jubail‐Dammam railway contract awarded ‐ Jubail‐Dammam railway contract value is $220m.
- Riyadh plans petrochemicals revolution ‐ Massive refining and chemicals integration plan will
- help cushion the kingdom against future oil shocks.
• ‘Saudi Arabian Oil Co. may offer the first cargoes of gasoline and diesel next month from a new
joint‐venture refinery, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
• The state‐owned company known as Saudi Aramco may ship light products from the facility at
the Persian Gulf port of Jubail, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information is not
public. The venture with France’s Total SA (FP), called Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical
Co. or Satorp, already plans to offer one or two cargoes of straight‐run fuel oil this month.
• Saudi Aramco Products Trading Co., an Aramco unit, will sell the fuel oil, according to the
people. The shipments will each comprise 80,000 metric tons and the first of them could be available
through direct negotiation, rather than by tender, late in September, one of them said. Satorp may offer
two more fuel oil cargoes next month before a coker unit starts.
• A spokeswoman for Total in Paris didn’t have an immediate comment when contacted by e‐mail
today. Nobody answered calls to Satorp’s media office in Khobar today and yesterday and a Saudi
Aramco spokesman in Dhahran referred inquiries to Satorp.
• Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest crude exporter. Satorp, 62.5 percent owned by Aramco and
the remainder by Total, is processing the Arab Light blend at a 120,000 barrel‐a‐day unit, the second
person said. Another crude unit of the same size will start next month, according to the person. A coking
facility, which will turn fuel oil into diesel and gasoline, is to start in November and will enable the
refinery to process heavier oil grades, the person said.
• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, members of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, are boosting their domestic refining capacity to produce more fuels such as
gasoline and diesel for local use. Refined products typically also fetch higher prices than crude in
international markets.