Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Company (Luberef) has awarded US firm Jacobs Engineering a project management consulting (PMC) contract for the $1bn expansion of its lubricating oil refinery in Yanbu’. The contractor said that the scope of work includes: supervision of ‘inside battery limits’ upgrades including a new lube oil unit, a new sulfur complex, a new hydrogen manufacturing unit and expansion of a propane de-asphalting unit; and ‘outside battery limits’ upgrading of utilities, tanks and infrastructure.
Jacobs said on 12 February that the Yanbu’ refinery expansion will increase production to meet future demand for high quality base oils, almost double bright stock (lubricating oil of high viscosity) production, produce higher value by-products (naphtha, diesel and kerosene) and satisfy Saudi requirements for drilling fluid, which is currently being imported. Luberef can currently produce 556,000 tons/year of lubricants from two plants, at Jiddah and Yanbu’. The expansion project at Yanbu’ will take Luberef’s total output capacity to 1.2mn t/y. South Korea’s Samsung Engineering is carrying out engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work on the expansion, with a view to completion in September 2015 (MEES, 19 October 2012). (CONTINUED - 621 WORDS)
