Saudi Arabia Key Projects and Business Highlights
More than any other country, Saudi Arabia initiated in 2012 one of the most versatile program of investment for projects of the oil and gas and petrochemicals industry from offshore upstream to high performances chemicals.
Following the discoveries in the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, Saudi Aramco started also offshore exploration on the west side of the Red Sea.
While having the world fourth largest reserves of conventional natural gas, Saudi Arabia is burning 3 million /d of crude oil that should be substituted by natural gas.
In respect with the spread of prices between crude oil and natural gas, all the projects to implement this switch from oil to gas, are highly profitable.
Saudi Arabia needs gas to supply its power generation, as feedstock for its petrochemical industry, and to inject in depleting oil fields to boost production.
As Saudi Arabia is running short of natural gas, Saudi Aramco launched exploration and testing program to develop its shale gas resources.
In parallel to its upstream capital expenditure, Saudi Aramco keeps the pace downstream with the
- Revamping and upgrade of its existing refineries, in Riyadh, Yanbu, Ras Tanura, and PetroRabigh
- Construction of new refinery in Jizan and expansion in Luberef
- Petrochemical expansions of PetroRabigh in joint venture with Sumitomo, SATORP in joint venture with Total, Saudi Kayan with Dow, Sahara and Tasnee.
But on the petrochemical side, Saudi Basic Engineering Corporation (SABIC) is the most active with major project in:
- Kemya with ExxonMobil
- Sadaf with Shell
SABIC is also investigating opportunities in shale gas, but in USA and only to buy it as competitive feedstock to balance its production and risks between North America and Middle East.
In 2012, both companies, Saudi Aramco and SABIC enforced their respective policy for the localization of the the engineering services in pre-qualifying Fluor, Jacobs Engineering, KBR, Mustang, WorleyParsons.
All these decisions made in 2012, will drive the projects and the selection of the suppliers and contractors in 2013.
Saudi Aramco makes gas discovery in Read Sea
Saudi Arabia consumes 3 million barrels per day of crude oil for domestic consumption that could be substituted by natural gas.
In the same time, Saudi Arabia holds 282.6 trillion scf of natural gas reserves, ranking in the fourth position in the world.
Saudi Arabia: the next country to develop shale gas
Since Saudi Arabia is struggling to increase its natural gas production to meet its fast growing demand, the national oil company Saudi Aramco investigate all potential sources of supply, onshore and offshore, conventional and unconventional.
Saudi Aramco selected EPCs for Jizan Refinery
Saudi Aramco made a decisive step forward in selecting the engineering companies to build the $7 billion Jizan refinery and terminal project.
To balance its economical development between its different provinces, Saudi Arabiathrough Saudi Aramco had selected the city of Jizan,
SABIC and Shell to expand Sadaf joint venture
In November 2012, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and Shell have decided to work on expansion opportunities of their joint venture Saudi Petrochemical Company (Sadaf).
These expansion ambitions are not limited to the sole Saudi Arabia
SABIC to benchmark Saudi Aramco GES+ services
Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Company (SABIC) is moving toward alliance with a short selection of two companies to provide engineering services in similar way to Saudi Aramco General Engineering Services plus (GES+) pre-qualification program.
SABIC is preparing a call for tender for engineering services and project management consultancy (PMC) support.
In the same way as the Saudi Aramco GES+ contract, the qualified engineering companies should be awarded to provide SABIC with:
