Business | Oil & Gas
Channel Sponsor
Profit drop will not affect Aramco expansion plans
A short-term drop in profit margins will have no impact on Saudi Aramco's plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on raising refining capacity, an official from the state oil firm said on Monday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:06 May 27, 2008
Manama: A short-term drop in profit margins will have no impact on Saudi Aramco's plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on raising refining capacity, an official from the state oil firm said on Monday.
Top oil exporter Aramco aims to boost its domestic and international refining capacity to 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013, up from around 2.4 million bpd. The expansion will place Aramco in the top five global refiners by cap-acity, said Khalid Al Buainain, senior vice-president for refining, marketing and international.
"We are in it for the long haul," Buainain told reporters on the sidelines of a conference. "Margins are not as strong as last year, that's for sure. But we're not concerned about short-term volatility in the margins."
Aramco is considering options to take the expansion even further, Buainain said. The company may increase capacity at its Yanbu refinery to 400,000 bpd from around 235,000 bpd now and add an integrated petrochemical plant, he added.
Aramco is considering Saudi Basic Industries (Sabic) as one of the potential partners for the expansion at the Red Sea plant, he said. Sabic is the world's largest chemical maker by market value.
"We are looking at it, we see Yanbu as an opportunity for growth," Buainain said. "It stands as a good prospect. We would love to do business with Sabic."
Aramco is exploring all options to have it fit in with a strategy of integrating refining assets with petrochemical facilities, Buainain added.
He declined to say when Aramco would decide on whether to proceed with the project, but said it was "a long way down the road."
The government has not asked Saudi Aramco to take a role in developing a planned new refinery at Jizan, Buainain said.
Share this article
Popular in Business
-
Budget travel
Airlines in the region
Take a pictorial look at some of the budget airlines in GCC
Business Editor's choice
-
Credit swaps... a fair trade
Would you swap an unbuilt unit at the Lagoons for an apartment at JBR?
-
New face of safety
Volvo reveals a sleeker S60, ready to hit the roads early next year
-
When the Web lives worldwide
Cutting-edge firms are building massive data facilities all over the globe
