Saudi Aramco is planning a complete shutdown of the Ras Tanura refinery for a 45-day maintenance period, Bloomberg has reported.
Although the plans have not been made public, a source close to the facility told Bloomberg that the maintenance will begin on December 16 and continue through to the end of January.
Ras Tanura has a total oil processing capacity of 550,000 barrels per day and Aramco has previously revealed that the asphalt unit will be shut down from mid-December to the end of January.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has said in a speech in Beijing that the Gulf Cooperation Council is planning to double domestic and international oil refining capacity by 2015. Saudi increased crude output capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day in June.
Saudi Arabia is the holder of the world’s largest oil reserves and is the biggest producer of the OPEC countries.
