KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Aramco has signed contracts with international firms to build a multi-billion dollar refinery at Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, the state-run company said on Wednesday.
South Korean firms Daelim and SK Engineering & Construction Company won deals to build three of the main processing units at the 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.
Other winners included Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas, Dayim Punj Lloyd (Saudi Arabia), a unit of Punj Lloyd, and Egypt’s Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (ENPPI), a Saudi Aramco statement said.
The refinery was to have been built by US oil firm ConocoPhillips and Aramco in Yanbu Industrial City, but Conoco pulled out of the plans in April.
The new Yanbu refinery accounts for just under a quarter of Saudi plans to add around 1.7 million barrels per day of refining capacity.
The complex refinery is slated to process heavy crude from Saudi Arabia’s project to pump 900,000 barrels per day from the Moneefa oilfield.
It is a sister project to another 400,000-bpd refinery that Aramco is building with France’s Total at Jubail on Saudi Arabia’s east coast.
In its statement, Saudi Aramco did not reveal the value of the contracts.
Industry sources said Tecnicas’ contract was worth around $700-$800 million and ENPPI’s contract was around $400 million.
The total cost of the refinery has been estimated at $10 billion, down from cost projections of around $12 billion when oil prices were at their height in 2008.
