Saudi oil major Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) will soon launch a project to convert crude into petrochemicals, the Kingdom’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said.
With a capacity of 400,000 barrels of crude per day, Saudi Arabia’s first-of-its-kind project will be established in Ras Al-Khair, a town and port in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, north of Jubail.
The minister outlined that oil receives strong demand from the petrochemical sector globally, adding that this growth will accelerate by 60% until 2040.
Both Aramco and SABIC has been working to commercialise crude to chemicals technologies as part of the strategy to position itself as a preeminent player in the global petrochemicals industry.
Aramco recently announced its biggest-ever investment in South Korea to develop one of the world’s largest refinery-integrated petrochemical steam crackers through its S-OIL affiliate, in line with the company’s strategy to maximise the crude to chemicals value chain.