Saudi Aramco and Total SA have signed an agreement to launch front-end engineering design (FEED) for their previously announced proposal to add an integrated petrochemical complex downstream of their jointly held Saudi Aramco Total Refinery & Petrochemicals Co.’s (Satorp) 440,000-b/d full conversion refinery in Jubail, on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast (OGJ Online, Apr. 10, 2018).
Amin H. Nasser, Aramco’s president and chief executive officer, and Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of Total, signed the joint-development agreement to proceed with FEED on the project in Dhahran on Oct. 8, Total said.
Details regarding a timeframe and contenders for the FEED award were not disclosed.
To be located next to and receive feedstock from the Satorp refinery in the same industrial area, the new complex will include a mixed-feed steam cracker—50% ethane and refinery off gas—with a capacity to produce 1.5 million tonnes/year of ethylene and related petrochemical units designed to yield an overall production of more than 2.7 million tpy of high-quality chemical products.
Alongside an Aramco-Total investment of about $5 billion, the project’s cracker will feed other petrochemical and specialty chemical plants that represent an additional $4 billion investment by third party investors for an overall project value of about $9 billion, the companies said upon announcing the project in April.
Scheduled for startup in 2024, the proposed petrochemical complex comes as part of broader strategies by both Total and Aramco to diversify, expand, and integrate their downstream business units.
