The Yanbu Industrial City on the Saudi Red Sea coast has five petrochemicals plants with a combined capacity of 9.57mn t/y and three refineries with total crude distillation capacity of 1.05mn b/d. It is also the planned location of a revolutionary crude oil to chemicals (COTC) plant being commercialized by state petroleum firm Aramco.
The COTC plant will have capacity to convert 400,000 b/d of Saudi crude into 9mn t/y of chemicals as well as base oils. While the schedule of the COTC plant has been delayed beyond the original 2025 start-up target and project scope has been reduced somewhat (MEES, 23 October), it will nevertheless almost double Yanbu’s petchems capacity to 18.57mn t/y. (CONTINUED - 795 WORDS)
