Saudi Aramco has shut down its 77,000 b/d Jeddah refinery on the kingdom’s Red Sea coast. It plans to convert the site into an oil products storage and distribution hub. Closure trims Saudi refining capacity by 2.7% (see table) to 2.82mn b/d, but its output will be readily replaced.
Aramco’s senior downstream vice-president Abdulaziz al-Gudaimi said on 19 November that reduced products output caused by the shutdown will be more than compensated in the longer term by next year’s planned start-up of a new 400,000 b/d refinery at Jazan, further down the Red Sea coast in the kingdom’s remote southwest. (CONTINUED - 604 WORDS)
