Page 5 - DMEA Week 16 2021

DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA

plant for which Aramco established the $8bn Meanwhile, South Korea’s Samsung Engi-
Jazan Power JV last year to serve the refinery. neering was awarded a $653mn contract by a
The JV is 46% owned by Air Products, 25% by subsidiary of the local Advanced Petrochemical
ACWA Power, 20% by Saudi Aramco and 9% by Co. last week to build a propane dehydration
Air Products Qudra. (PDH) plant at Jubail II.
The private partners are carrying out a According to a filing on the Tadawul Saudi
design-build contract awarded in 2015 covering stock exchange by Advanced Global Investment
the air separation unit and oxygen supply facil- Co. (AGIC) in December, the facility will have
ity – at capacity of 20,000 tonnes per day (tpd) of a production capacity of 843,000 tpy when it is
oxygen and 55,000 tpd of nitrogen billed as the complete, with S&P Global Platts Analytics say-
world’s largest industrial gases complex – at the ing that it will be the largest of its kind.
4,000-MW plant. Work is set to begin this year as Advanced
The remainder of the IGCC project is being expands its footprint at Jubail also kicking off
executed on an engineering, procurement and construction on an 800,000-tpy polypropylene
construction (EPC) basis – with Italy’s Saipem, (PP) plant.
China’s Sepco and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas The firm’s 85%-owned Advanced Polyole-
winning the four main packages in 2014. The fins Co. (APOC) subsidiary agreed an eight-
new three-way JV will operate the gasification year, $800mn loan with the Saudi International
and power assets for 25 years from completion, Development Fund (SIDF) to part-fund the
which is scheduled this year. development of the units, which will begin oper-
ations in late 2024. Advanced’s stake in APOC is
Jubail held by AGIC, with the remaining 15% held by
With GlobalData estimating that petrochemical South Korea’s SK Gas Petrochemical.
projects will account for 50 of the 82 oil and gas It said: “The project will be financed 25% by
value chain newbuild and expansion projects to equity from shareholders and [the] remaining
beginning operations in 2021-25, and another project cost, in addition to SIDF loan, will be
eight in refining, downstream is a clear area of financed by APOC through borrowing from
focus. commercial lenders.”
By comparison, GlobalData anticipates just Propane will be supplied by state oil firm
six upstream projects will be launched during Saudi Aramco under a long-term deal. Mean-
this period. while, AGIC has signed deals with US firm Lum-
The hub of activity in this regard will be the mus Technology and Italy’s Basell Poliolefine for
two industrial cities at Jubail, up the coast from the use of their proprietary technologies on the
Ras Tanura, where the Kingdom is building out PDH and PP facilities respectively.
a world-scale petrochemicals centre. According to ICIS data, Advanced Petro-
GlobalData’s report highlighted the Al-Jubail chemical currently produces 455,000 tpy of
Ethylene plant being developed by the Saudi propylene and 480,000 tpy of PP from facil-
Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Co. ities at Jubail. It also produces propylene in
(SATORP) adjacent to their 440,000-bpd refin- Ulsan in South Korea through its SK Advanced
ery that was commissioned in Jubail Industrial subsidiary.
City II in 2014. The 1.5mn-tonne-per year (tpy) Meanwhile, AGIC last month received
facility is expected to cost around $1.6bn and will approval from the Ministry of Energy to allocate
provide feedstock to other facilities at Jubail. the required feedstock from Aramco for a new
At the same time, Aramco continues with plastics facility at Jubail II.
its integration of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. The new unit will have a cracking capacity of
(SABIC), in which it acquired a 70% stake from 1.15mn tpy of ethylene, 850,000 tpy of propylene
the Public Investment Fund (PIF) – the sover- and 400,000 tpy combined of aromatics and fuels
eign wealth fund – for $69.1bn last year. once it comes into operation in late 2025.™

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