【HaiChuan Chemical Project Updates】China and Saudi Arabia to invest $2.4 billion in a pan-Asian integrated project for science-based petrochemicals and textiles
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2.4 billion dollars! China-Saudi Arabia capacity cooperation reaches a \"new level\". On May 15, the Pan-Asia Science Group, the investor in the first project under China-Saudi Arabia capacity cooperation – the Pan-Asia Science Petrochemical and Fiber Integration Project – signed a supply and marketing agreement with Sinopec Chemical Sales Company; Sinopec Chemical Sales Company will provide raw materials and take care of the sales of the products produced by this project. Through this partnership agreement, Sinopec’s market channel advantages and the project’s own strengths will be effectively leveraged to provide comprehensive support for the project in terms of marketing, technology, and more. The Pan-Asia Science Petrochemical and Fiber Integration Project is the first benchmark project to be implemented as part of China and Saudi Arabia’s capacity cooperation.
The Pan-Asia Science Petrochemical and Fiber Integration Project is located in the Jizan Basic and Downstream Industries City in Saudi Arabia. It takes advantage of Saudi Arabia’s abundant oil resources, using PTA/PET as a core material to produce polyester chips for non-fiber applications and to develop related downstream industries. The total investment in this project is 2.4 billion dollars, and it is planned to be built in two phases. Among them, the first phase of the project commenced construction at the Jizan Economic Park on January 29, 2019, and the SSP unit of the 500,000-ton PET project is set to go into operation by the end of October this year. At the same time, Sinopec will provide technical support and services such as product quality control for the commissioning and operation of the Saudi project, offering comprehensive support regarding the project’s production processes, product quality, market sales, and operations, thereby ensuring smooth commissioning of the project as well as its stable operation in the future.
July 11, 2019: In recent years, as the shale oil revolution in the United States has been successful, Saudi Arabia, worried about having its market share taken away, seems to be under pressure to increase investments in order to boost production capacity. On July 9, Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco signed 34 contracts with two offshore oil fields (the Marjan and Berri fields), worth a total of $18 billion. Subsequently, on July 11, media reports indicated that Sinopec Group stated that a subsidiary of its Petrochemical Engineering Company had signed contracts for two pipeline projects at Aramco’s Marjan oil field.
2016-01-22 14:04 Yilin Technology Development Co., Ltd. Local time yesterday (the 20th) afternoon, in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, the Chinese leader currently on a visit to Saudi Arabia and King Salman of Saudi Arabia jointly attended the ceremony marking the official commencement of commercial operations at the SABIC China Petrochemical Yanbu Refinery. This is PetroChina’s first overseas refining project, as well as China’s largest investment project in Saudi Arabia.
The Yanbu refinery is located in the petrochemical industrial zone near the city of Yanbu, in western Saudi Arabia. As Sinopec’s first overseas refining project, it is also China’s largest investment in Saudi Arabia, with a total investment amounting to nearly 60.5 billion yuan. Li Xihong, general manager of the Yanbu Refinery project department at Sinopec, explained that although the refinery is located by the Red Sea, it still lies in a desert area; the abundant sand and hot weather pose significant challenges to construction work.
At present, the utility systems of the Yanbu refinery, as well as units such as atmospheric and vacuum distillation and delayed coking, have been successfully commissioned, while the remaining units are being fed with materials for trial operation one after another. Under the agreement, in the initial phase of the Yanbu refinery project, China and Saudi Arabia would hold 37.5% and 62.5% of the shares respectively. However, Li Xihong said that in the future, the shareholdings of China and Saudi Arabia would be equal. When the conditions are right in the future, this joint venture refinery will transfer or sell its shares to the public, or list 25% of its shares; at that time, Sinopec will hold 37.5% of the shares, Saudi Aramco will hold 37.5%, and the public will hold 25%.
With the Yanbu refinery now in full commercial operation, it is capable of processing 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which amounts to 20 million tons per year. Factories equipped with world-leading refining facilities produce gasoline and diesel of a quality that meets both American standards and Euro 5 standards. Li Xihong said that Sinopec takes its share of the sales proceeds in accordance with its stake in the project. Due to the relative surplus in domestic oil refining capacity in China, the products produced by the Yanbu refinery are mainly destined for the European and American markets, supplying high-quality petroleum products to the international market. Over the past year or so, they have not brought gasoline and diesel to the Chinese market for sale; they mainly sell them in other parts of the world. As market demand grows, products can be sold wherever there is a good market for them, and wherever such quality of products is needed.