Aramco hopes to boost its refining capacity to 8m bpd over the next decade, according to Chief Executive Officer Khalid al-Falih (pictured). Speaking as he signed a $10bn refinery deal with Sinopec, al-Falih outlined ambitious plans for expansion in the downstream sector.
"Over the next decade our total global refining capacity is expected to approach 8 million barrels per day," he said. "The various world-class local and international refining and petrochemical investments Saudi Aramco is making are a testament to our firm belief that the downstream remains an attractive and profitable business," added al-Falih.
Aramco's new target represents a significant increase on previous aims to boost capacity to over 6m bpd. In addition to the deal with Sinopec, which will see the two state-run firms jointly developing a 400,000 bpd refinery on the Red Sea coast, Aramco plans new refineries in Jubail and Jizan and an expansion of Ras Tanura, which is already the largest refinery in the region.
"We will come back to the Ras Tanura expansion within the next decade or so," said al-Falih, who added that the company also intended dramatic expension in petrochemicals. "We have said we are going to be a top three petrochemical company ... so we are going to grow by an order of magnitude from where we are today, and it will be a $60 billion business by the time we are done building this petrochemical company," he said. "It will be global and hopefully the intent is to have it well integrated with our other downstream activities."
PetrolWorld 17012012
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