Page 13 - DMEA Week 17 2021

DMEA TERMINALS & SHIPPING DMEA

Houthi attacks on Aramco continue

MIDDLE EAST YEMEN’S Houthi militants continued their though bulk plants and other midstream facil-
attacks on oil and military complexes in neigh- ities remain.
bouring Saudi Arabia last week as they targeted While Jazan’s remote location means that
facilities in the west of the country. crude must be shipped there from Gulf coast
Drones were used in separate attacks on the terminals, the facilities further up the coast are
King Khalid air base in Khamis Mushait and fed by the East-West Pipeline which Aramco is
Saudi Aramco facilities at the south-western currently overhauling in a $250mn project to
port of Jazan, while a “booby-trapped” boat was increase longer term throughput capabilities
intercepted and destroyed near Aramco’s Red from 5mn bpd to 7mn bpd.
Sea downstream hub at Yanbu’, according to the At various points over the past two years, the
Saudi Ministry of Defence. use of drag-reducing agents and “interim con-
S&P Global Platts quoted shipping sources as version of NGL pipelines” allowed for a “tempo-
saying that the incident took place close by the rary mechanical capacity increase” to reach the
NCC Dammam, a chemical tanker operated by upper limit for short periods, however, during
Bahri, Aramco’s shipping arm. 2018 and 2019, flows averaged 2.1mn bpd.
Faisal Al Husseini, vice president of commer- The conduit is vital for Aramco as it trans-
cial and operations at Bahri’s Chemicals division ports crude from the Abqaiq processing hub in
told Platts: “We have spoken with the Master of the oil-rich Eastern Province to refineries and
our good vessel NCC Dammam and confirm export terminals at Yanbu’ on the Red Sea Coast
that the vessel, her crew and cargo are safe and and completion of the expansion project is tar-
all is well on board.” geted in December 2021.
At the time of the incident, the vessel was car- EWP was targeted by Yemen’s Houthi rebels
rying a 40,000-tonne cargo of chemicals loaded in 2019 when the militants launched drone
at the Gulf coast terminal of Jubail, home to two strikes on that disabled the Abqaiq plant and the
industrial cities that house the majority of the Khurais oilfield, taking around 5.7mn bpd off
Kingdom’s petrochemicals industry. the market.
While the Red Sea facilities are more than
1,000km from the bulk of upstream operations Yanbu pipelines
which are located in the Eastern Province, the In related news, a consortium of the Emirates
repeated attacks are a significant problem for National Oil Co. (ENOC) and Rotary Arabia
refining and export operations. Yanbu’ is home this week announced the completion of four
to Aramco’s wholly-owned 305,000-barrel per new pipelines connecting a chemicals facility at
day refinery of the same name as well as the Yanbu’ to a nearby storage unit.
430,000-bpd Yanbu’ Aramco Sinopec Refining The pipelines connect a unit owned by Farabi
(YASREF) joint venture unit, while the company Petrochemicals to a storage facility operated by
is ramping up operations towards a planned Arab Tank Terminal Ltd. (ATTL) which com-
400,000-bpd capacity at its Jazan refinery closer prises 28 tanks with a combined capacity of
to the Yemen border. Further up the coast, the 288,000 cubic metres.
Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Co. (Petro Around 70% of production from the Farabi
Rabigh) JV with Sumitomo Chemical has a facility currently consists of linear alkyl benzene
capacity of 400,000 bpd. (LAB) and normal paraffins (NPN) with the
Aramco closed its Jeddah refinery in 2017, remainder being assorted derivative products.™

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