Speculation over Riyadh refinery’s future, Kuwait’s Al-Zour schedule slips, UAE goes silent … Only in Oman and Qatar does the way forward seem clear.Three new refineries representing the first wave of a major Gulf refining capacity expansion have recently added almost 1.42mn b/d crude processing capacity to take the total crude and condensate throughput capacity to 8mn b/d. However, there are growing doubts over the schedules of other planned projects.
Saudi Arabia has brought two 400,000 b/d capacity refineries online – Satorp was built by Saudi Aramco and France’s Total and Yasref by Aramco and China’s Sinopec – and the latest available data shows this helped push Saudi refinery throughputs to a record 2.22mn b/d in April (MEES, 19 June). (CONTINUED - 661 WORDS)
