MANAMA, 6 August 2004 — Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has been appointed as the financial adviser to the sponsors for the Rabigh project, a $4.3 billion integrated refinery and petrochemical project located at the Red Sea town of Rabigh on the west coast of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. are joint sponsors for the project. Potential lenders are expected to be approached to achieve financing for the project by the second half of 2005. The project is slated to start commercial operations by 2008. The project will be built on the site of Saudi Aramco’s existing refinery at Rabigh, which has a nominal crude distillation capacity of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).
A high-olefins-yield fluid catalytic cracker complex will be commissioned and integrated together with a world-scale, ethane-based cracker, producing approximately 1.3 million tons per year of ethylene, 900,000 tons per year of propylene, and 80,000 bpd of gasoline and other refined products.
Once in operation, the Rabigh project will be one of the largest integrated complexes ever built and a landmark example of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia.
