ALKHOBAR: Saudi Arabia’s Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co. (PetroRabigh) has begun operations at its $10.3 billion petrochemical and refining plant with a shipment to China, the company said yesterday.
PetroRabigh shipped its first cargo of 19,200 metric tons of monoethylene glycol (MEG), a coolant and antifreeze solvent used for industrial applications, to China, the company said in a statement.
The firm, an export-oriented joint venture between state oil giant Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical, started partial operation of its facilities in the fourth-quarter of 2008.
The company said last September it would defer by three months the commercial launch of operations to the first quarter of 2009.
A company spokesman declined to say whether the plant was now running at full capacity.
Aramco and Sumitomo paired in 2005 to upgrade a 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery and add a petrochemical complex, the largest in the region.
After the upgrade, the refinery will have the capacity to produce 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline, compared to zero previously. The upgrade also includes adding a 200,000 bpd vacuum distillation unit, a 92,000 bpd catalytic cracking unit and a 26,000 bpd alkylation unit.
An ethane cracker will produce 1.25 million tons per year of ethylene and a gas plant will produce 900,000 tons per year of propylene, both feedstocks for petrochemical production, the company said.
