“The signing ceremony will be held under the patronage of Minister
of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Aramco President and CEO
Khalid Al-Falih and Sinopec Group Chairman Fu Chengyu,” said an official
invitation from the Saudi oil giant.
According to a Reuters report, Aramco will hold a 62.5
percent stake in the joint venture project while Sinopec will own the rest. The
venture is now popularly known in the industry circles by its acronym YASREF
for Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company Ltd.
“For Sinopec, the venture would be the first refining
project the Chinese state-run oil major, parent of top Asian refiner Sinopec
Corp., builds outside China, putting it in a race against rival PetroChina
which has snatched a string of refinery deals beyond Chinese borders,” said
Reuters.
The refinery is slated to process heavy crude from the
Kingdom’s Manifa oil field, which is currently under development to reach an
output of 900,000 bpd by 2014.
Saudi Aramco has already partnered with Sinopec at the joint
venture Fujian plant in southeast China. It is considering to build three new
joint venture refineries in Asia, Saudi Aramco’s largest and fastest growing
oil market as part of plans to boost its global refining capacity by 50 percent
to over 6 million bpd.
