An industrial sprawl at the hub, home to many petrochemical plants including those of Sabic
As Jubail Industrial City awaits the completion of one of its most ambitious projects – Satorp’s Jubail Export Refinery – in its second phase, the city hopes to build on its enormous reputation as the world’s leading petrochemicals hub and intensify diversification of Saudi Arabia’s economy.
According to the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Jubail produces 7 per cent of the world’s petrochemicals, contributes 11.5 per cent of the kingdom’s non-oil GDP and creates 85 per cent of its non-oil exports.
“Jubail Industrial City’s greatest achievement is the use of the kingdom’s natural resources of gas, gas liquids and oil to create industrial development diversification from oil production and new business opportunities for petrochemical and energy-intensive industries,” the Royal Commission stated. It added that its objective was to attract foreign and domestic investment, stay competitive and achieve sustainable product growth and world-class safety and environmental levels.
“Our vision is to be the best choice for investors in petrochemical and energy-intensive industries and the leading contributor to the kingdom’s growth,” it said.
Figures the Royal Commission released show that the industrial city’s plants produce annually 65.8 million tonnes of petrochemicals, 15.5 million tonnes of refined products, 10.5 million tonnes of steel products and 192,000 tonnes of float glass.
Sabic’s steel affiliate Hadeed is building a plant with an investment of SR1.55 billion ($413 million). The company has signed a contract with the Italian company Danieli for constructing the plant and a production line for galvanising long products. The new plant, scheduled to start-up in the second half of 2012, will have an annual production capacity of 1 million tonnes of steel billets. It will increase Hadeed’s total production capacity to 6 million tonnes, of which long products will account for 4 million.
Sasref, the Saudi Aramco and Shell Refinery, has a SR1.35 billion project to produce low-sulphur diesel and completion time is the third quarter of 2012.
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Main activities relate to the petrochemical, refinery, fertiliser, steel, downstream, support and light manufacturing and food services sectors.
The total investment of companies in Jubail-1 is SR272 billion.
Jubail Phase-2
Around 42 companies have applied for Jubail-2 but none are operating. All eyes are on the Jubail Export Refinery project of Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company (Satorp) which is building a grass roots refinery with capacity to process 400,000 barrels per stream day (BPSD) of Arabian heavy crude oil to produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, paraxylene, petroleum coke and fuel oil for export and LPG, liquid sulpur, propylene and benzene for domestic consumption or further processing.
The SR48.7 billion project is being built within Plot 9 of Jubail-2, about 3 km west of the long-established Jubail-1. Saudi Aramco has a 62.5 per cent stake in the venture with Total owning the remainder stake of 37.5 per cent.
Among other major projects being set up in Jubail-2 are a seamless steel pipe factory of Arcellor Mittal, a polysilicon plant of Shoaibi and a plant of Gas company to produce oxygen and nitrogen.
The Royal Commission plans to invest SR20 billion on basic infrastructure facilities across four stages in Jubail-2. Planned first-stage facilities including gas, feedstock, water and power, wastewater, roads, a pipeline corridor and drainage canals have all been completed at a cost of SR5 billion. As much as 58.3 per cent of similar facilities have been completed for the second stage of Jubail-2.
Separately, in line with a Master Plan, the Royal Commission completed the new Petrochemical Quay 2, seven additional berths and loading arm structures to meet the future needs of industries in Jubail Industrial City. The new quay has a total area of 800,000 sq m.
