The partners are “thinking” about a possible extension to the multibillion-dollar joint venture but first they want to launch formally the plans that have been announced, senior sources at Total told CW recently.

“Right now we are thinking about getting the [existing] project launched,” one source says. The partners are considering an ethylene complex among the additional plans, he says. The Al Jubail project would then mirror Aramco’s plans to forward integrate the company’s refineries at Rabigh and Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia.

Construction on the Rabigh and Ras Tanura projects is under way in partnership with Sumitomo Chemical and Dow Chemical, respectively. Aramco also plans to integrate a planned export-oriented refinery at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia with petrochemicals manufacture, possibly in a partnership with Sabic. Rabigh and Ras Tanura will also become major industrial parks for downstream industries, under Aramco’s plans.

Aramco and Total have selected Axens to provide technology for the Al Jubail project’s aromatics complex, which will have capacity for 150,000 m.t./year of benzene and 750,000 m.t./year of para-xylene, Jean-Baptiste Roques, manager/business development, Saudi Arabia at Total tells CW.

Details of the required capital expenditure and the name of the jv will be announced this quarter. Aramco and Total signed a contract in 2006 to build an export refinery at Al Jubail and said that completion would be by 2011. The project covers construction of a 400,000-bbl/day, full conversion refinery, which will process Arabian heavy crude.

Technip Italy is providing support with detailed design and construction, assisting with cost estimates, and developing the lump sum turnkey packages. Aramco announced recently that integration into petrochemicals is “key to growth” for the company and to job creation in Saudi Arabia.

The company says that Saudi Arabia’s population has one of the highest rates of growth and that more than 54% of Saudi citizens are under the age of 30.

Many jobs can be created by integrating refineries with petrochemical complexes and developing industrial clusters, says Abdulaziz M. Judaimi, v.p./new business development at Aramco

Reference: chemicalweek

A final decision to go ahead with the project will be made after a feasibility study is completed in December, reports add. Total, Hindustan Petroleum (Mumbai), Gail India (New Delhi), Oil India Ltd. (New Delhi), and Mittal Energy signed an agreement last October to launch the feasibility study.

The Visakhapatnam complex was originally to include a 15-million m.t./year refinery and a petrochemical unit producing olefins and aromatics with a combined capacity of 1 million m.t./year.

The planned capacity of the refinery has since been reduced to 14 million m.t./year, reports say. The project would be completed 4-5 years after construction starts and the proposed complex would initially be focused on exports. Several major petchem projects in India have run into difficulties recently due to rising costs.

ONGC (New Delhi) and its Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals (Mangalore, India) subsidiary decided last month to exit a previously announced $6-billion refinery and petrochemical jv at Kakinada and to divest their stake in an associated special economic zone.

ONGC decided that the refinery and petchem project were no longer viable following a decision by the state government of Andhra Pradesh, India to deny ONGC’s request for tax incentives worth about $4 billion over an eight-year period, reports say.

IndianOil (New Delhi) decided in May to put on hold the petchem portion of a planned refinery and petchem complex at Paradip. The total cost of the project had increased to $10.7 billion from an earlier estimate of about $6.1 billion, reports say.

IndianOil plans to implement the project in phases with the petchem complex to be built after the refinery, which is currently expected to cost about $7.1 billion and be commissioned in 2012, reports say.

Reference: chemicalweek