Planning of a production complex for Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura Integrated Project (RTIP) is taking quick steps forward and a disclosure was made that the project would yield 8 million tonnes of petrochemicals making it the largest conglomeration of grassroots plastics and chemicals facilities in the world.

The figure was disclosed by Saudi Aramco’s vice president for Ras Tanura integrated refining and petrochemicals, Adil A Al-Tubayeb, at a meeting of the Joint Manufacturing Programme team of the RTIP.

The Saudi giant and Dow Chemical signed an MoU in 2007 for the world-scale RTIP.

The programme team discussed the first phase of strategy development and 70 per cent of the organisation design in a ‘cold eye’ review.

The team will take the feedback from executives and use it in the next round of planning. An execution plan could be presented as early as this month (October), with resources planning expected by the end of the year.

The joint-venture manufacturing master plan could be rolled out in the summer of 2010. If all goes according to present predictions, the organisation and facilities could enter full operations by 2015.

The Ras Tanura petrochemical joint venture will be operationally integrated with Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura Refinery Complex and its Ju’aymah gas processing plan, two of the largest facilities of their kind in the world. They will supply feedstock to the joint venture and continue to be owned and operated by Saudi Aramco.

The RTIP complex will produce a broad range of both basic and performance products including ethylene, propylene, aromatic and chlorine derivatives. Initially, the project scope includes world-scale production units for polyethylene, ethylene oxide and glycol, propylene oxide and glycol, chlor-alkali, vinyl chloride monomer, polyurethane components, epoxy resins, polycarbonate, amines and glycol ethers.

Highly integrated
“It is a highly integrated complex,” Al-Tubayeb noted. “It consists of 35 process units, each of which could be considered a major project, and will produce on the order of 8 million metric tonnes of products annually. This will dictate the development of a best-in-class manufacturing strategy to operate this site to maximise value to the shareholders.”

The objective of the meeting, he said, was to involve and establish partnership with the parent companies on joint-venture manufacturing organisation development, precommissioning, commissioning and start-up.

“Since the beginning, the plan has been to involve the proponent to take ownership of the project and ensure the operating requirements are part of the design,” said Hussain A Al-Qahtani, Saudi Aramco’s manufacturing director.

“The manufacturing role goes beyond the normal practice and includes developing best-in-class strategy on maintenance, reliability, engineering, environmental health and safety, product quality and human resources as part of the proponent’s scope and strategy development,” he said. “The interface between the Ras Tanura Integrated Project and Ras Tanura Refinery is extremely important.”

Coordination centre
Al-Qahtani told executives about the plan for a Site Operations and Integration Centre that will coordinate activities among the 35 plants and other stakeholders such as Ras Tanura Refinery, the Ju‘aymah Gas Plant, pipelines and suppliers.

“Communications between Saudi Aramco and RTIP will be key for success and to ensure outstanding design,” Al-Qahtani said. “Important challenges include the interface between the project and the refinery and the shipment of hydrocarbons to manufacturing facilities.”

Saudi Aramco’s Bassam Al-Bokhari and Frank Lucas of Dow Chemical presented the principles, basis and complexity of the organisation design, including the best-in-class concept, work process, organisation structure, staffing and preparing the work force for the future.

“Manufacturing staffing will grow to reach full staffing during the commissioning,” Al-Bokhari said, noting that “more than 1,000 apprenticeships for operators and technicians are envisioned. Hiring and retaining experienced employees will be a major challenge for RTIP.  The strategy is to increase the experience level to ensure smooth and safe operations.”

The estimated cost of the RTIP is at least $20 billion but a report published by the international media said there could be a saving of $4 billion in project costs as a result of slowing economic activity.