Saudi Aramco is planning a maintenance shutdown at its wholly owned Yanbu refinery early next year, a person with knowledge of the schedule told Bloomberg.
Work will start in February, the unidentified person told the newswire.
The refinery, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, processes 225,000 barrels of crude a day, producing gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, jet fuel and liquid petroleum gas for domestic use.
Refinery operators generally schedule major maintenance shutdowns, known as turnarounds, every three or four years, stopping most units while repairs are done.
Saudi Aramco and Exxon Mobil run a separate joint venture refinery, also in Yanbu, and Aramco is planning to build another refinery there.
In July Aramco awarded seven EPC contracts for the development of the Yanbu Export Refinery project to four international contractors and three local ones.
Saudi Arabia is expanding refining capacity to process more fuels such as gasoline and diesel as domestic demand rises. The kingdom is building two other new refineries at Jubail on the Persian Gulf coast, and Jazan in the country’s southwest.
